Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

CPRE calls for next government to increase protection for green belt

07 Apr 2015, 3:56 pm

Countryside campaign group the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has called on the next UK government to change planning policy in order to "direct development to suitable brownfield sites and avoid unnecessary releases of green belt land".

In a report named Green Belt Under Siege (4-page / 243 KB PDF), the CPRE said its analysis of draft and adopted local plans showed nearly 220,000 new homes and over 1,200 hectares of industrial development were proposed within the country's green belt.

The group said there was "particularly serious pressure" to develop green belt land around London but noted that "planning inspectors have [also] signed off major releases of green belt for development around cities such as Leeds and Newcastle / Gateshead, where there is ample brownfield land available within the urban areas".

The CPRE called for an urgent review of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), prioritising brownfield sites for development before greenfield sites and providing that "green belt boundaries should only be changed in genuinely 'exceptional circumstances'". It also called for the introduction of a national land strategy and for the amount of land allocated for housing development to be "based on realistic assessments of what the public and social sectors are likely to deliver".

“In the wake of the Lyons Review, brownfield development is promoted by the majority of the political parties in the run up to the general election, but the need to review the green belt remains the elephant in the room”, said planning expert Helen Stewart of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.

"The Lyons Review noted that not all green belt land is of high environmental or amenity value and reminded local planning authorities of their ability under current policy to review and change local green belt boundaries," said Stewart. "Yet only last month in its response to the NPPF review, the government rejected the recommendation that councils should be encouraged to review their green belt land, restating its position that it would not return to a top down approach to planning."

"Developers may be encouraged that the latest figures from CPRE arguably indicate that some authorities are clearly willing to contemplate development in the green belt," said Stewart. "However, critics may argue that these figures simply put into question the efficacy of the NPPF to protect the green belt."