Developers building on greenbelt land

[smallglassbottle]

In my area, developers are building on greenbelt land, cutting down trees and bulldozing hedgerows etc. Who is going to be able to afford these houses with the employment situation looking so poor, mainly through ai, wage stagnation etc.?

Why don't local councils sell town centre land for housing development seeing as many high streets are dying? I feel sad for the wildlife and trees.

There is loads of legislation to protect wildlife and habitat in the UK

about:blank Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981* *

about:blank Protection of Badgers Act 1992

about:blank Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017

about:blank Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000

about:blank Environment Act 2021 - this is the legislation that brought in Biodiversity Net Gain. Any development work that needs Planning Permission must create at least 10% improvements to biodiversity (this is measured in area of different types of habitat, which have different weightings) and maintain it for 30 years.

about:blank Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009

There are however a lot of unscrupulous developers (and, I hasten to add a lot of very, very compliant ones) and poor resources to police BNG.

EXACTLY what's happening around us
The council is just saying 'do what you like, we won't fight it"
Bonkers

Bollox they are

There's loads of greenbelt being built on in Wyre Forest. In Kidderminster, they're building 1500 homes one side of town on fields. The other side of town has hundreds now built on former fields too. Agricultural land previously used to grow food and a nesting site for skylarks. Right next to a nature reserve with bats and other wildlife.

The new houses have had their prices dropped so anyone who bought first has lost money. Very ugly housing.

In Stourport, a neighbouring council has allowed developers to use greenbelt because it's on the edge of their boundary and not near any population within their council so it's our roads clogged up and local services struggling to cope with the influx.

It is happening everywhere I see. It isn't for our local population. It is people relocating to here from urban sprawl 20 miles away.

It's sad to see but was pleased that they have approved land for redevelopment in the middle of town. That's what we need. Not ghost towns and loss of countryside.

My local Facebook groups are full of upset about similar. However the local authority have published a local plan which highlights land they would be favourable to being used as housing. They don’t have plans to build on it, and they don’t own it therefore have no control as to whether it’s sold to developers. I don’t think the groups understand this and think housing is being built on all the sites straight away. Is it similar?

I don’t think the public really have an issue buying houses, out housing shortage is well established. But if they did, surely they’d struggle to afford your suggestion of houses in the town centre too?

RAF sites are clearly not greenbelt and the developers will be paying for local services and if a school is needed, there should be one. The NHs is slow to provide services but they must look at GP services. I’d much much much rather have old MOD sites redeveloped over greenfield sites.

Green belt is defined by a boundary and it’s not any old green field. Stables are clearly existing buildings so are not greenfield.

Surely a better approach to the housing crisis is to have an overarching national strategy for using empty homes?

From ONS 2021 census

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/numberofvacantandsecondhomesenglandandwales/census2021

*Of the 1,507,100 unoccupied dwellings in England in 2021, it is estimated that 89.7% were truly vacant and 10.3% were second homes. There were 120,450 unoccupied dwellings in Wales in 2021, of which 85.4% were truly vacant and 14.6% were second homes.

Out of all English regions and Wales, the West Midlands had the highest percentage of unoccupied dwellings that were truly vacant (95.4%), although this region had the lowest percentage of unoccupied dwellings overall (4.8% of all dwellings). The South West had the highest percentage of unoccupied dwellings that were used as second homes (18.1%). London had the highest percentage of unoccupied dwellings (8.0% of all dwellings) of English regions; 91.6% of these were vacant and 8.4% were second homes with no usual residents.*

I think local plans and planning laws are fairly impenetrable to the average person. The decision on the land in my town was overturned by a government inspector anyway.

They are, you are right. Neighbour tried to purchase small bit of land and change from open space to garden. It was denied due to loss of biodiversity on 10m2 square piece of grass. At the same time they buldozzed through nature reserve nearby and built an estate on greenbelt with new one coming up soon.

And look at the scandal that is the Astley warehouses in Wigan. Horrifying.

I could probably guess the location that the op is talking about. Just been announced that planning permission has been granted but I also know how long it has been planned for. There's suddenly a lot of stories appearing again about how someone is being turned off their land. I don't know exactly how long its been planned for but I've been aware of it for the last 7 years. The ecological surveys took years for starters.

Turns out that some green belt areas are being developed because they’re “poor quality”

In my area they want to build on grade A agricultural land.

Me bad was green field not green belt land they’re building on locally.

Is that because no one wants to farm it?

Lots of HS2 is on green belt. Green firms are not green belt. In planning that’s a totally different concept.

No, it's being farmed.

Wigan is such a shitshow. They are unsellable. The local planning made houses simply unsellable. Depending on whats stored there, I would as an owner want to see safety cases for the site
I cannot imagine how people are dealimg with the noise, dispair and understanding that council does absolutely not give a fuck. Elections in there might be quite something if they have them on

We loved where we used to live but has now got planning applications all round the village for between 4 to 6 thousand houses.

We need housing. So, housing will have to be built everywhere. 🤷‍♀️

Awful isn't it. I can't believe there isn't more of a scandal about this - maybe it will have to take a ITV drama like Mr Bates to get it into the national press. The council may have followed all process but they completely ignored residents, have blocked out light, caused flooding and now there is CCTV overlooking people's gardens.

Apparently we need more housing but there is another thread running where no one seems to be able to sell.
It appears that we'd rather displace wildlife to build poor quality housing than actual deal with housing people better in the first place. It's a racket for housing developers and doesn't benefit those that actually need it.

@SparrowFeet Who do you think builds houses? Of course these publicly quoted companies are not running a racket. They want to build homes. It’s their business!

If you want homes to rent, it’s the big developers that mostly build them. No one else does! Be careful about thinking there’s some sort of not for profit house builder with enough of a business to build the 1.5 m houses promised. There is not.

I just think it's a shame all round. Yes we need housing but I question how we do it. We need hospitals and schools and roads that aren't completely congested and put in place before the houses are shoehorned into existing towns. Our system is crap.

Then there's the awful houses that are being built. Devoid of character. Out of touch with nature. Causing stress for residents being totally on top of each other and badly thought out. Just look at the parking threads.

We could do so much better.

Exactly what I said. It's the next ITV drama surely. I don't think they have followed process from what I understood. Reports not done that should have been etc.

The Green Party are allowing it in the Forest of Dean, they’re all just thinking of the revenue from council tax, they’re as bad as the rest of them: www.stopglynchbrook.co.uk

Yeah the green councillors said yes here too. Mind boggling.