Astonishingly one in ten adults believe that 75% or more of the
country is already effectively built on, when official statistics show
only 2% of the available land in the UK has been built on, the
remaining 98% of land being classed a natural land. In fact, England
has one of the lowest levels of built environment per capita in the
whole of the EU, behind only the Netherlands and Cyprus.
There have been calls for the green belt to be redefined and
opened up to development by lifting some of the planning
restrictions currently in force. Analysis by estate agency Hamptons
found that building on green belt land around 80 railway stations
could provide 509,000 homes across Britain, according to the Adam
Smith Institute, one million people could be housed by developing
on 3.7% of London’s green belt areas close to existing commuter
stations, with potential for a further three million new homes
by building on less than 5% of green belt land in the ten least
affordable UK cities.
Strategically located developments on green belt land could prove
crucial in the fight against the housing crisis, evening out land use
and affordability so that homes are built in the right places, closer
to major cities with the supporting jobs and infrastructure.
Such jobs and infrastructure could take the form of new schools,
shops, community centres, GP surgeries or hospitals. All of which
would help take pressure off green belt communities and the cities
around which they exist.
How then do we meet the challenge of building the 300,000 homes
we so urgently need when there is so little land on which to build
them? While building on the green belt is certainly a politically and
socially sensitive subject, the green belt itself is actually a somewhat
arbitrary designation. Disused petrol stations, warehouses, railway
sidings and scrubland are all designated green belt land despite,
firstly, not being green, and secondly, serving little or no purpose.
The green spaces many associate with the green belt are typically
areas of outstanding natural beauty or ancient woodlands that are
already protected by law.
Then there are the claims that maintaining the green belt is necessary
to prevent urban sprawl and protect the environment. But over a
third of green belt land is held for intensive farming, and forcing
developments further away from cities puts increased pressure on
our already creaking transport infrastructure. Towns in south-east
of England, particularly the counties immediately bordering London
have seen a population explosion in the last twenty years as a result.
Colchester, some 50 miles from London, has the fastest growing
population in the UK seeing growth of 25% since 2001.
One factor responsible for this, according to some experts, is that
landowners, in the event of compulsory purchase, have a right to be
reimbursed not only for the value of their land as it stood but for its
potential value if it were used for some other purpose, for example,
residential homes. House builders try and recoup the costs of
buying the land by building more expensive properties that they
drip feed into the market.
Clearly the best of the greenbelt needs to be preserved, but we also
need to think creatively about how to solve the UK’s housing crisis.
Perhaps a green belt ‘classification system’ could offer a partial
solution – giving a top rating to those sites in need of protection,
such as national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and
a lower rating to those, such as disused petrol stations, which could
potentially be opened up for development. This could help clarify
to both developers and the public those areas which will forever be
protected, and those which could be used to help ease the housing
crisis without damaging the UK’s valuable countryside.
The weight of evidence suggests that a sizeable element of
England’s green and pleasant land may still hark back to the days
when dark satanic mills dotted the landscape and potentially offer
a solution to where to build the houses that will address one of the
UK’s biggest social issues.
Increases in population density in city centres takes green space
away from those that live there and value it most, and puts pressure
on local parks due to harsh urban containment policies. No-one
in London can have failed to notice the increase in the number
of skyscrapers being built in the capital as a result. There are 510
buildings of over 20 storeys currently planned for London, and a
record 115 projects are already under construction.
As obvious as it sounds, to truly combat the housing crisis we need
to make sure we are building the right homes, in the right places.
This makes it crucial that the houses we build on green belt land
are affordable and accessible. The government’s recent Social
Housing Green Paper vowed to address housing affordability in
the UK through a number of bold reforms, yet a recent study by
the CBRE found that, of the 460,000 homes currently planned for
development, 78% will not be affordable. This will do little to ease
the housing crisis, as people remain unable to buy a permanent
home and green belt land is wasted on unoccupied luxury
developments.