According to new figures, the number of new homes being approved on green belt land has increased five-fold in the last five years…
Figures obtained by the BBC, and collected by Glenigan, show the amount of construction taking place on green belt land across England has increased significantly.
According to the data, in 2009-10 planning permission was granted for 2,258 homes. In 2014-15 the figure increased to 11,977. The number of approvals doubled in the last year alone.
Greenbelt land was created in a bid to prevent urban sprawl and to stop neighbouring towns from merging into one another. Across England there are 14 green belts, spanning 13 per cent of the total land.
Under the current policy, green belt land is only to be built on in “exceptional circumstances”. However, the current shortage of homes has pushed many local authorities to turn green belt sites over to developers.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said Hertfordshire, one of the areas feeling significant pressure for new homes, has already seen 34,000 homes proposed on green belt sites. An additional 10,000 waiting in the wings.
Hertfordshire CPRE’s Kevin Fitzgerald said: “We are getting continual statements by government ministers, correspondence from government departments to various bodies like to us saying it is their determination to protect the green belt and the wider countryside.
“But, nevertheless, throughout our county, our planning authorities are coming out with these proposals for quite major development.”
Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis said local authorities have the responsibility to decide how to use green belt land. He said: “Greenbelt is something that has been there to give a strategic protection to those green lungs.
“We have outlined what local areas need to do if they want to go through a review of their green belt.
“It is very much a matter of those local authorities. They are the best placed people locally, democratically accountable locally, to decide where is the right location for any development.”
Professor Paul Cheshire from the London School of Economics said the green belt was misunderstood.
“You only need a tiny amount of the least environmentally-attractive green belt to solve the housing land shortage for generations to come, whereas Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks do provide huge benefit.”
A survey of Local Planning Authorities by Natural England found 37 per cent had housing allocations in or around Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). This totals 30,000 homes within the boundaries and another 20,000 just outside.
The data revealed North Wessex Downs AONB currently has proposals for 1,400 homes around the growing science and innovation campus at Harwell.
Henry Oliver, director of the North Wessex AONB, said: “This has been here for thousands of years. The idea that it’s worth trading all this wonderful landscape off against a relatively short-term economic boost is not one that I find acceptable.”
Leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council Matthew Barber said the authority had to plan to meet the demand for new homes.
He said: “We have a high housing target that we need to meet, and we have judged in this case that includes this site, in the AONB next to a major employment site.
“The alternatives to that, we fear, would be unsustainable additions to other communities elsewhere in the district.”
Hugh Ellis, head of policy at the Town and Country Planning Association, said the problem was the planning system.
“I think overall planning can be best described as being very broken. I don’t think there has ever been a point in the post-war era where planning has been as demoralised, as underfunded and lacking in strategic direction as it is now.”
However, Lewis disagreed. He said: “I think we’ve got a system now that trusts local people to make those decisions, and the National Planning Policy Framework is actually very clear.
“Great weight should be given to conserving landscapes and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
“Planning permission should be refused for major developments in these except in exceptional circumstances and where it can be demonstrated that it is in the public interest.”