Again just a brief blog to share some figures with you about the UK Governments attempts to meet their manifesto statement of being the greenest government ever.
As many appreciate land not built on carries out essential functions for everyone in Britain for example it provides food, pollinators*, flood mitigation, carbon storage, cooling of urban areas etc etc.
Living on a crowded island you know that there is not much room and therefore to lose the functions of green land in all it's form is actually to increase management costs to the taxpayer in to the future and probably in perpetuity in terms of flood management, health, climate mitigation and so on.
People keep saying there is a housing shortage but I have NEVER seen any statistics on this, but the Government bought what the private developers have said and claimed. Greenbelt land will always be a developers choice. Greenbelt connects with urban services and therefore it is cheaper to build on and is attractive to market as it sits in a semi-rural area, which is a huge irony.
So to the stats:
In 2009-2010 there were 2,258 planning permissions granted for housing on greenbelt land.
2014-15 that figure on greenbelt loss rose to 11,977 (for some reason, probably greed led, developers are getting approvals but not building as construction is flat in the UK).
Government say building on greenbelt should be in 'exceptional circumstance'.
Government will say local authorities have the decision making power as to where homes should be built through Neighbourhood Plans, but let's be honest here, Neighbourhood Plans are just a cover for ill consider decisions forced by the building and construction lobby.
Government said the most treasured and protected land will be restricted when it comes to new build. North Wessex Downs area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has proposals for 1,400 new homes for example.
Much of the data here comes from File on 4 but the most telling quote comes from Hugh Ellis, Head of Policy at the Town and Country Planning Association who is quoted as saying 'I think overall planning can be best described as being very broken [and since 1945] planning has [not] been as demoralised, as underfunded and lacking in strategic guidance as it is now'. He suggests Government take no strategic stance, nor leadership in planning.
We effectively live in an era of willingly uncontrolled and profit led development.
*You will also note that the UK Government, the greenest ever, is allowing crops that kill pollinators to be planted in Autumn 2015.
