What is the problem?
The beautiful Green Belt around Stevenage is under threat from development plans. Photo: Campaign Against Stevenage Expansion
Green Belts are being nibbled away. When we lose open Green Belt land, we lose more than just a view, a potential recreation spot, an easy escape from the city or valuable farmland; we lose a sense of place.
Houses, roads, airports, universities, sports venues, parking lots and more are being built on Green Belt land. Over 800 hectares a year are disappearing under development, and with them the clear distinction between city and country or between two towns.
Speculators are dividing up dozens of other areas of Green Belt land with stakes and fences, and marketing them in small plots to people, often overseas, who want to make money from building on them. When time passes with no prospect of the land being developed, the land often becomes overgrown and blighted by fly-tipping – thus increasing the pressure to develop the land in order to tidy it up.
And new research carried out by CPRE and The Guardian in March 2007 shows that 10,000 acres (4200 hectares) of Green Belt are now at risk from major development proposals in the Government’s regional plans.
> Read about our research in our briefing Major Development Threats to Green Belt, see link on the right.
Why this is happening
The Government's planning policy on Green Belts clearly states that Green Belt land should be kept permanently open and be protected from development. CPRE strongly supports this policy, and so do the thousands of people who have written to us since our Green Belt campaign in May 2005. A MORI poll in August 2005 showed that we are not alone and that the vast majority of people think that building on Green Belt should not be allowed. But day after day, Green Belt boundaries are being moved or threatened and development is being allowed to encroach.
The Government is giving mixed messages about Green Belt protection, both confusing local planning authorities and encouraging speculators to purchase it in the hope of developing the land in future. While ministers repeat their commitment to the Green Belt, other Government actions are often inconsistent with these assurances. For example:
- Bank of England economist Kate Barker, in her Treasury-sponsored Review of Land Use Planning in 2006, called on local authorities to review their Green Belt boundaries more often – thus threatening the permanence of Green Belt.
- Although it had the power to stop them, the Government allowed, between May 1997 and March 2004, 162 planning applications for development in Green Belts to be permitted.
- Its Aviation White Paper proposes aviation expansion which would result in 700 hectares of Green Belt being lost — including 240 hectares from a Gatwick expansion alone.
- Around 10,000 acres (4,200 hectares) of Green Belt land are at risk from proposals in draft Government regional plans, including land in Luton, Harlow, Bath / Bristol, Birmingham / Coventry, Cheltenham /Gloucester, Bournemouth / Poole, and Nottingham.
> Government planning policy on Green Belts, on CPRE's Planning Help website (194K PDF)
