With the green belt in the news, this blog covers the key information everyone needs to know. What counts as the green belt and what doesn’t? Where is the green belt? And what do recent Government changes mean?
The green belt is an urban containment planning policy, designed to limit development on areas around particular towns and cities.
Green belt-type policies evolved piecemeal through the first half of the 20th Century, before the power to establish green belts was given to local planning authorities in the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. Today’s green belts have been in place since 1955 when Housing Minister Duncan Sandys encouraged local authorities to introduce and expand them. Policy guidance on their purpose was further strengthened in 1962, 1984, and 1998, and their total extent has been broadly unchanged since the 1970s.
Today, the green belt’s five purposes are defined in the National Planning Policy Framework:
Green belt land can be redesignated as suitable for development where there are ‘exceptional circumstances’: when the planning authority cannot otherwise meet the need for homes, commercial or other development through other sites.
Before redesignation, the authority must demonstrate that it has considered all other options, including using brownfield sites, changing policies to allow densification in locations in town and city centres or places near public transport, or by making agreements with neighbouring authorities to accommodate development.
The green belt is not an environmental designation. The planning system has many environmental designation types, including: ancient woodland; tree preservation areas; nature reserves; special conservation areas; and sites of special scientific interest. It also designates national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, which are more like green belt in that they cover larger areas of land and limit development, but they are related to the general aesthetic and natural qualities of that land, rather than urban containment specifically. The green belt contains and overlaps with these other designations, but it is not related to them.
The green belt is not land open to the public. Most green belt land is privately owned, without any public access rights. Rights of way, public parks and other designations make some green belt land accessible to the public, but no more than they do in other parts of the countryside. Academics at the London School of Economics estimate that less than one third of the London green belt is open to the public.
The green belt covers a lot of land. As Figure 1 shows, green belts surround most of the UK’s largest cities – from London to Aberdeen, Bristol to Newcastle.
In total, 12.6 per cent or England is covered by green belt (1,639,000 hectares), while Scotland is 2.1 per cent covered by green belt (164,191 hectares). The London green belt alone is twice the size of Luxembourg.
Figure 1: The English and Scottish green belt
Green belt boundaries are not completely set in stone. They have been both nibbled at and expanded in different places over time. In England, between 2003 and 2019, 58,600 (3.5 per cent) was removed via changes to local plans, before 25,400 hectares were added again between 2019 and 2023. Local authorities usually redesignate green belt land for housing or strategic commercial development, and sometimes make up for this by redesignating other land as green belt.
It is also worth noting that lots of places don’t have green belts. The growth of many small-to-medium sized towns in rural England, including Norwich, Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter and Peterborough, is managed by local plans and the other planning designations listed above.
Wales has a ‘green wedge’ policy. These wedges are much smaller and more targeted than English or Scottish green belts, identifying specific areas where development isn’t permitted, rather than large swathes of land. Click here for a map.
Policies introduced by the Government in December 2024 establish new rules when it comes to managing the green belt.
A new formula for centrally decided housing targets set the scene. Most targets have increased, and requirements for meeting them have been strengthened, meaning more authorities will need to look to green belt land to fulfil requirements.
The Government has also introduced changes to direct this process: a new intermediate definition ‘grey belt’, and new ‘golden rules’ for what green belt development should achieve.
Grey belt is green belt land that the Government thinks should be prioritised for development ahead of other green belt land.
The 2024 NPPF describes two types of grey belt, to be prioritised in order:
Simply, the local planning authority should prioritise releasing previously developed green belt land and then turn to land nearest to existing built-up areas.
Further to setting priorities in local plans, the grey belt definition now means certain development on green belt land is no longer ‘inappropriate’, as long as it is in a ‘sustainable location’, there is ‘need’ for the proposed scheme, and the development doesn’t ‘fundamentally undermine the purposes of the remaining green belt’.
Exactly how much land falls within these definitions is still unclear. Some have suggested that if the removal of the need to contribute to purpose c) means development is now allowable within 500 meters of an existing urban area, but not within 500 meters of a conservation area or listed building, then up to 15 per cent of the green belt could be classified as grey belt. But this is probably an over-estimate, given that the above rules will be interpreted piecemeal, by different planning authorities and courts across the country.
Certainly, a few court cases will be required before it becomes clearer is now allowable exactly.
Developments in the green belt (including grey belt) will now have to meet what the Government is calling the ‘golden rules’. The golden rules stipulate that major developments involving housing need to deliver:
The Centre for Cities has called for green belt reform for over a decade. Recent research has shown that the green belt is the largest barrier to choosing the most suitable sites for urban expansions and new towns. For example, it blocks 88 per cent of sites near to train stations around London.
Future reform should take a more ambitious and more spatial approach than the Government’s recent changes. It should involve the release of substantial tracts of land for development, in locations best connected by public transport. This would leave nearly all green belt land designated as not developable, but also ensure there is enough land for the millions of homes the UK needs to build.
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