CPRE report shows Green Belt ‘being eroded at an alarming rate’

The Green Belt is under severe pressure due to the housing crisis according to a new report from CPRE.

In the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) latest annual State of the Green Belt report, the organisation says some 460,000 houses are being planned for land that will be released from the Green Belt, while the percentage of ‘affordable’ homes built continues to fall.

Moving Green Belt boundaries in Local Plan reviews makes it easier for local authorities to release land for housing, however, the CPRE says this is strategic as a way of getting round the Green Belt’s protected status.

The report also demonstrates that building on the Green Belt is not solving the affordable housing crisis, and will not do so. Last year 72% of homes built on greenfield land within the Green Belt were unaffordable by the government’s definition.

Of the 460,000 homes that are planned to be built on land that will be released from the Green Belt, the percentage of unaffordable homes will increase to 78%.

CPRE warns that this release of land looks set to continue, as one third of local authorities with Green Belt land will find themselves with an increase in housing targets, due to a new method for calculating housing demand. The London (Metropolitan) Green Belt will be the biggest casualty.

Tom Fyans, Director of Campaigns and Policy at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, 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. 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.”

According to the CPRE, there is currently enough brownfield land in England to accommodate more than one million homes, and the CPRE is urging the government and local authorities to ensure that this is redeveloped before any more greenfield land is released from the Green Belt.

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