Housing crisis looms but building on the green belt is not the answer

Verity Comley discusses the green belt and why Britain’s house building programme must be focused on brownfield land.

In UK town planning, the green belt is a policy tool used to control urban growth.

The belt is a ring of countryside around towns and cities where urbanisation is resisted for the foreseeable future – maintaining an area where agriculture, forestry and outdoor leisure can flourish.

The fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl – keeping land permanently open for people to enjoy.

The policy, which was first proposed in 1935 by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee, outlined a Metropolitan Green Belt around London.

Nearly 80 years later, it is possible to see the evolution of the original policy up and down the country as it’s grown up around most major towns and cities.

In fact, as of March 2010 the area designated as green belt in England was estimated to be a whopping at 1,639,560 hectares – around 13% of all land area.

New guidance, published this week, reaffirms how councils should use their Local Plan, drawing on protections in the National Planning Policy Framework, to safeguard their local area against urban sprawl – and protect the green lungs around towns and cities.

The guidance explains that, once established, green belt boundaries should only be altered in exceptional cases, through the preparation or review of the Local Plan.

However, in 2012 the green belt was nearly 32,000 hectares smaller than it was in 2003 according to the Department for Communities and Local Government statistics.

Which begs the question – are local planners taking the policy seriously enough?

When we consider that question we must also bear in mind the wider social context. We are facing unprecedented levels of immigration – faster than any other EU country – and in the past decade alone the UK population has risen by 5 million people.

This means housing stock is at a premium and, in London at least, we are already in a fully-fledged housing crisis.

When faced with this massive problem you can begin to understand why the green belt appears to be getting tightened.
But in doing that we are at risk of missing out on so much.

Our Reconomics research showed why it’s important that this government, and any future government, values our green and pleasant land.

Outdoor recreation, much of which takes place in green spaces, is:

• The UK’s favourite pastime: three in four adults in England regularly get active outdoors.
• Drives the visitor economy: people spending their day enjoying outdoor recreation spent £21 billion in 2012/13 - and when you factor in overnight visits this comes to £27 billion.
• Creates jobs and skills: walking tourism alone supports up to 245,500 full-time equivalent jobs.
• Promotes a healthy nation: outdoor recreation can make a significant contribution to tackling the £10 billion cost of physical inactivity.

That’s why we were delighted to see Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis say that thousands of brownfield sites are available for development, and should be prioritised by local authorities.

And this announcement followed the Treasury announcement in June that 50,000 new London homes would be built on 20 such sites.

Housing is an emotive issue that is not going to go away, but by being smart with where we build them, we can make sure that future generations don’t miss out on all the benefits of the great outdoors.

Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

The Telegraph has a handy, interactive map which allows you to see areas near you that are classed as green belt land.

Read more blogs by Verity.

Read more Sport and Recreation Alliance blogs

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