Building on Green Belt ‘no solution to crisis’
Report says most homes will not be affordable
THE NUMBER of homes planned for Green Belt land has risen to nearly half-a-million properties but the wave of construction will do little to help people get on the property ladder, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) warns today.
Analysis by the charity shows that more than three-quarters of the 460,000 homes planned across England on land which would be released from the Green Belt will be unaffordable by government definitions.
Tom Fyans, the CPRE’s director of campaigns and policy, said: “We are being sold a lie by many developers. As they sell off and 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.” The CPRE’s annual State of the
Green Belt report shows that local authorities in Yorkshire plan to release Green Belt land to accommodate about 49,000 homes.
Nearly half of these homes are in either Leeds or Bradford, reinforcing the concerns of greenspace campaigners that development will contribute to urban sprawl and erode the boundaries between the two cities. The Tong and Fulneck Valley Association is seeking to protect Green Belt land in the Tong Valley between the two cities.
Its chairman, the Rev Canon Gordon Dey, said: “It has been one of the key planks of our campaign all along, the coalescence between Leeds and Bradford and the way the Green Belt is being eroded away. It is a big issue.”
Leeds City Council’s executive member for planning, Coun Richard Lewis, said the authority prioritised building on brown- field land and were “firmly committed to ensuring there is no unnecessary loss of Green Belt land in Leeds while meeting future housing need”.
Bradford Council’s executive member for planning, Coun Alex Ross Shaw, said the Bradford district had a growing economy and they had “to plan for building to accommodate that growth”.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was introducing new rules to strengthen protections for the Green Belt, meaning councils “may only alter boundaries in exceptional circumstances”. David O’Leary, the policy director of the Home Builders Federation, said a Green Belt designation had “little to do with ecology or beauty” and included previously developed land, which many would consider suitable for development.
He said: “Hysterical reports about building in the Green Belt do little to raise the level of debate about the country’s housing needs. The reality, as shown by official statistics, is that there is more Green Belt land in England today than there was in 2006.”
YORKSHIRE’S COUNTRYSIDE can find itself caught between competing and conflicting demands, and one of the thorniest issues to resolve is that of housing.
The need for affordable homes in rural communities has never been more pressing. It is accepted by all sides in the debate over how they should be provided that if the countryside is to prosper, younger people must be able to get a foot on the property ladder.
If they cannot, the consequence is a migration to the cities in search of work and somewhere to live, draining the countryside of economically-active people and the families needed to sustain communities.
This dilemma is at the heart of today’s report by the Council for the Protection of Rural England. Its conclusion that whilst the green belt is being eroded at an alarming rate, yet the number of affordable homes being built continues to fall is seriously concerning.
It indicates that a sensible balance between development and providing what is needed to help the countryside has still not been struck.
Building on the green belt is, understandably, an issue of great concern to many, and it is perfectly valid for the CPRE to question why this is happening when so much brownfield land that could be used for housing is going undeveloped.
The Government needs to address this issue by looking at its housing policy.
On the one hand, the greenbelt must be protected, and yet on the other the need for affordable housing demands to be tackled.
It is an unsustainable position for the Government to allow developers to eat into the greenbelt without ensuring that higher numbers of homes available to young, first-time buyers are built. This is an issue not just of protecting the countryside. It is one of ensuring that it is able to thrive.