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The green belt provokes strong feelings, but people mistake its purpose as protecting beautiful countryside. The next government must take a pragmatic approach if it is to solve the housing crisis, writes John Acres
Green belts are often described as the best-known, but worst-understood, UK planning policy.
In a year when we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 – which heralded both national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty – one might be excused for thinking that green belts are part of that same objective: to promote, preserve and protect Britain’s landscape.
They are not.
Green belts have always been viewed as a physical planning policy designed to contain the unrestrained growth of cities. A ‘green belt’ was first envisaged in the metropolitan plan for London in 1935, intended to prevent the inter-war spread of the conurbation.
The 1940 Barlow Report concluded that the problems of urban congestion and industrial decline were best served by planned decentralisation. The 1944 Greater London Plan, developed by Patrick Abercrombie, proposed a green belt surrounded by satellite new towns to relieve the pressures of congestion and trigger planned growth of employment and housing – enshrined within the 1946 New Towns Act.
This carrot-and-stick approach to post-war planning was established within the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. In 1955, housing minister Duncan Sandys introduced Circular 42/55, which extended the reach of green belts throughout the country, inviting local authorities, where appropriate, to define green belts into their plans, to protect land around towns and cities.
“Green belts are a physical solution to a planning problem. Openness and permanence are the key criteria, rather than landscape quality or beauty. In fact, green belt land is often unattractive, untidy and uninspiring”
The government later bolstered this strategy through the introduction of an expanded towns programme – with small towns accepting planned overspill from the major towns and cities.
Fast-forward to the present day and 14 green belts now cover 1.5 million hectares (or 13% of England) – a figure that has increased over time. The key purposes of green belts have remained largely consistent throughout, albeit the fifth reason was added subsequently:
Green belts are therefore a physical solution to a planning problem. Openness and permanence are the key criteria, rather than landscape quality or beauty.
In fact, green belt land is often unattractive, untidy and uninspiring.
The rigid control over development leaves little scope for flexibility and no real scope or incentive for improving its appearance.
Very special circumstances are required to override the strict controls over development. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, consent for proposals within the green belt is rarely granted, except in the national interest.
Even planned growth through local plan reviews requires ‘exceptional circumstances’ to justify change. Recent government figures show that only 13 authorities made planned green belt incursions during 2018/19. With the exception of East Hertfordshire, the lion’s share was in northern cities such as Barnsley, Kirklees (Huddersfield) and Rotherham.
Pressures for growth in London have now reached the point where in late October, the London Plan inspectors reached the “inescapable conclusion” in their examination report that mayor Sadiq Khan should commit to a review of the city’s green belt to meet future development needs and urged him to “water down” his tough stance against green belt development.
Other conurbations, such as Manchester, have also struggled to address this issue. Andy Burnham is set firmly against green belt releases in preference to brownfield sites, while the West Midlands Combined Authority lacks strategic powers to take any co-ordinated action at all.
So, set against a background where planning policies tend to focus housing development towards urban areas, how can towns and cities accommodate a growing population with tight green belt restraint?
“Is it logical that growth of towns and cities should be constrained when this distorts the whole house price mechanism and industrial location patterns?”
The choices are either for cities to grow inwards and upwards by regeneration and increasing densities, to grow outwards by selectively breaching green belt boundaries, or to build beyond the outer edge of the green belt in planned or expanded communities – or possibly all three.
But this then raises three further questions. Against the challenge of climate change, should green belt policy – unchanged for a generation – constrain towns and cities (which are more efficient in economic and transport terms) while dispersing growth to less sustainable locations further afield where commuters have much further to travel?
Should swathes of green belt be protected for those fortunate enough to enjoy a rural lifestyle relatively close to the city?
Indeed, is it logical that growth of towns and cities should be constrained when this distorts the whole house price mechanism and industrial location patterns?
Finally, could selected locations on transport corridors within the green belt be chosen for development to achieve a better compromise?
Green belts were designated by politicians a generation ago to address the uncontrolled growth of towns and cities and then defined in detail by planners who drew the boundaries. But at that time they did not consider the wider issues of sustainable development, the critical tensions between economic growth and environmental restraint and, most importantly, the implications for climate change.
Politicians at all levels, guided by policy advice, now staunchly defend those green belt boundaries. Yet the public, and occasionally politicians, often confuse the terms ‘green belt’ and ‘greenfield’, creating an inbuilt and populist resistance to growth and change.
Without proper regional and strategic planning, which was abruptly abandoned in 2010, it is difficult to weigh up all these issues in the round.
What we now need, during this general election campaign, is a return to strategic planning and a proper debate about the need for housing and employment, the options for growth and the future roles and functions of green belt in the 21st century.
John Acres, policy director, Land Promoters and Developers Forum