Build on the ‘green belt’ wasteland, says MP

Many designated sites are of little environmental value and could help solve shortage of homes in cities

GARAGES, wasteland and refuse plants are being wrongly designated as green belt land, a Labour MP has warned.

Siobhain Mcdonagh, MP for Morden, has found multiple examples of wasteland sitting empty and unused within minutes of the nation’s busiest railway stations. She argues that if such land was developed, it would go some way towards solving the housing crisis as well as preserving areas of natural beauty. “There’s a garage site a stone’s throw away from Tottenham Hale Sta- tion in London that is designated as green belt, but there is not a blade of grass to be seen,” she said.

“In fact, apart from a green car parked in the garage, there is no green to be seen anywhere. In Durham, there was a piece of scruffy land that was allowed to have donkeys on it but you couldn’t build a house there. We have MPS from all over the country complaining about it – brownfield sites being caught up in the green belt designation.”

Ms Mcdonagh is fighting for one million more homes to be built in London, where 22 per cent of the land within the city’s boundaries is classified as green belt, meaning it cannot be used to build new homes.

She will today submit a contribution to the National Planning Policy Framework, asking the Government to reconsider green belt designation in “unsuitable” places.

The proposal has support from think tanks and cross-party MPS.

Matthew Kilcoyne, from the Adam Smith Institute, said: “Far from rolling hills and daisy strewn meadows, the green belt is anything but a rural idyll. Over 60 per cent is farmland, with herbicides and pesticides pouring air pollution into our cities.” The metropolitan green belt was designed to prevent cities from swallowing up the countryside. Experts have warned that any solution to the housing crisis in cities such as Oxford, Cambridge and York can only be done with green belt reform.

Previous plans under Sajid Javid, when he was minister for housing, proposed forcing “Nimby” councils in the home counties to allow developers to build homes on their green belt.

However, Ms Mcdonagh said: “I have no desire to call for building in our countryside or on the flowing fields of green that we should be so grateful to have. My frustration is not with parks and hills or areas of natural beauty. And, of course, I have no intention of calling for housing in areas with environmental protection. But the reality is that there are loads of sites like the garage site at Tottenham Hale.”

She added: “There are 128,000 children in England living in temporary accommodation, desperate for a place to call home. In the hearts of our towns and cities and close to public transport, scrubland, rubbish tips and car washes are inappropriately designated as green belt land.

“It’s time to burst the myth that all green belt is green and use it for the homes our children so desperately need. It’s time to grasp the nettle and to stop promising new homes without the means of providing them.”