Should we sacrifice the Green Belt to housing?
SIR – Allister Heath’s call (Comment, September 29) for bigger villages and the sacrifice of some Green Belt to meet Britain’s housing crisis would destroy some of the lovelier parts of our country. In Haddenham, famous for the pond in Midsomer
Murders, there are proposals for more than 6,000 houses on prime agricultural land. These fields are also our protective Green Belt. Villagers have shown opposition in writing and in packed halls.
Britain must decide if it wishes to house those born here or those who come to work but who will be unable to support themselves in old age, requiring state assistance for health and housing. Shirley Henderson Haddenham, Buckinghamshire
SIR – The housing crisis will never be fixed by tweaking policy, forcing more people to live even closer together in ever-smaller houses.
Flying over Britain reveals that much of our green and pleasant land is doing nothing very productive. We can spare a few fields for housing.
The way forward is to develop new villages of 3,000 houses, with infrastructure and amenities built from scratch. Siting them in open land means fewer objections and so more rapid completion. Rodney Howlett Darley Dale, Derbyshire
SIR – Allister Heath is right to call for more housebuilding, particularly on suitable brownfield sites. However, his solution to the crisis would bring more social anger.
The Government has already tried deregulated planning in much of England. The result is that large housebuilders have been given more planning permissions to choose from, thus increasing their stranglehold on new building. Fewer, often poorer-quality, houses have been built, and in the wrong places. Weaker planning policies have led to large estates of executive homes rather than the affordable housing we need. Looser controls on the Green Belt, which provides the countryside next door for 30 million people, would simply allow more of the same.
There is nothing “civilised” about urban sprawl. It costs much more to the public purse, leads to a loss of farmland, and forces people to drive further. We should focus on redeveloping suitable brownfield land, which can provide a million new homes in England, and encourage developers to build out existing permissions. Paul Miner Campaign to Protect Rural England London SE1
SIR – Allister Heath writes that a new home averages just 76 sq metres. In Holland it is 115.5 sq metres. In Brentford, acres of dock warehouses are being turned into hundreds of blocks of flats. Are these hutches forced on developers by planning rules – or are developers after as many units as possible while the going is good? Michael Harrington Brentford, Middlesex