Countryside ‘destroyed by unaffordable new houses’
New flame... Paul Hollywood’s girlfriend, Summer GREEN belt land is being “eroded at an alarming rate”, campaigners warned yesterday.
Half a million homes are being planned for Green Belt land which is supposed to stop urban sprawl, said the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Yet it estimated that local authorities with Green Belt areas have enough previously developed or “brownfield” land for more than 720,000 homes.
And in England as a whole there is enough brownfield land to accommodate more than one million homes.
But the CPRE said Government house-building targets will mean more land being stripped out of the Green Belt for development.
This claim contrasts with Theresa May’s pledge in March to protect the Green Belt which is supposed to stop towns and suburbs becoming cities.
In a speech, the Prime Minister said: “The answer to our housing crisis does not lie in tearing up the Green Belt.
“Barely 13 per cent of this country is covered by such a designation, but it serves a valuable and very specific purpose.
“Green Belts exist not to preserve landscapes but to prevent urban sprawl.”
But the CPRE figures show that 460,000 homes are planned for land that will soon be released from the Green Belt.
Tom Fyans, CPRE director of campaigns and policy, said: “We are being sold a lie by many developers. As they gobble up the Green Belt to build low density, unaffordable housing, young families go on struggling to afford a place to live.
“The affordable housing crisis must be addressed with increasing urgency, while acknowledging that far from providing the solution, building on the Green Belt only serves to entrench the issue. The Government is failing in its commitment to protect the Green Belt – it is being eroded at an alarming rate.
“But it is essential, if the Green Belt is to fulfil its main purposes and provide 30 million of us with access to the benefits of the countryside, that the redevelopment of brownfield land is prioritised, and Green Belt protection strengthened.” The CPRE urged the Government to stop speculative development and create new Green Belt areas.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “We are clear that building the homes our country needs does not mean tearing up our countryside.
“Last year the number of new homes built was the highest in a decade and only 0.02 per cent of the Green Belt was developed for residential use.
“We are adding more certainty to the planning system and our rule book strengthens national protections for the Green Belt and says that councils may only alter boundaries in exceptional circumstances once they have looked at all other options.”