To think Green Belt Areas should not be built on.....no matter what?

[jessicawessica]

Am so fed up of councils grabbing Green Belt areas in order to build new houses without taking into account the impact this has.
I live in a small village where the council have decided it's a good idea to build basically a whole new village on the supposed green belt area.
Do they not realise the impact this will have?.
New roads will need to be built in a village that already has crawling traffic. The school is full. We don't have a GP surgery, and the site they have chosen will impact greatly on our castle remains.
Anyone else felt totally impotent if this has happened in their home town?

I think the problem is we need more houses but I haven't met anyone who wants them built near them, seems a bit of a catch 22 really.

I don't mind houses being built. People need homes. I do wish they would choose to build infrastructure first though. Maybe ask the builders to build the schools and roads as a tick box to get planning permission? In an ideal world this would be built on brown belt or sold farm land.

Shouldn’t build homes without the infrastructure to support them. Road capacity, public transport, schools, other services, leisure areas.

Green belts are to stop urban sprawl, they were put in place and have not (in general), until recently been reviewed. They are not there because of landscape beauty and often the boundaries are arbitrary.

Green belt, in planning terms is probably the closest policy that prevents any form of development in that area no matter . This includes extensions and small scale development. There are a few very minor exceptions to this.

The arguments you put forward are not green belt arguments but general planning arguments that are being put all over the country and particularly in the south east.

Whilst I appreciate and understand your position, most people in your position don’t get engaged with planning at the local plan or neighbourhood plan stage and only start shouting at the planning application stage, which is generally too late.

What I also need to ask is what is your solution to the housing crisis? I work in a local authority and the demand for both social housing and private housing far exceeds supply. Affordability is a huge issue.

People don’t like the term nimby, but the reality in most cases is the attitude ‘I don’t care where you build, as long as you don’t affect me!’

P.s. infrastructure provision is incredibly complex. Get developers to pay up front (even if that was possible) and they would be buying their permission. On commencement and the infrastructure isn’t in place in advance. Not to mention the pressure this puts on hugely overstretched county councils

Councils don't grab greenbelt land. The Government designates greenbelt land as no longer greenbelt, which removes it from the greenbelt. It's then free to be built on.

Councils don't have the power to build estates on greenbelt land. If a council took the view that a proposed develop on greenbelt land, such as an extension to a rural pub, would cause no significant harm to the greenbelt then they can approve it, but it would still have to go to the Secretary of Stare for final approval.

I used to think like you, OP, but now I know you are wrong.

Green belts are next to cities, and cities are where people need to live. They NEED to live there. Not somewhere else you would rather they lived. They need to be by their work, hospitals, schools and we need to house them.

Green belts are a massive part of the problem but I hope that planning restrictions will be relaxed and homes and roads be made available to all the families and households that need them.

No .I have no problem with recognising the need for houses, especially if social housing.
My argument is that there is only one school, only one main road and only one castle.

Building on green belt is unusual. Which green belt is it? Are you sure it is definite? The local council do not normally decide if green belt can be built on.

They already have the Community Infrastructure Levy or Section 106 contributions by developers for things such as school and other facilities If indeed they're not already included as part of proposals.

This is happening to us as part of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, although they want to extend an (already massively, half empty) industrial estate at the back of us. I know people need jobs and affordable places to live, but our roads are already jammed up, and our schools and GPs surgeries are already full. We've got no end of brownfield sites and derelict cotton mills, plus northern towns that are dying, yet they want to build massive distribution sites and five bed executive homes, when nobody in north Manchester earns enough to buy one of those houses. We're not taking it lying down.

PersonaNonGarter has a good point. The farther people are force to live from cities, the more pollution/destructive it is to the environment.

Can only usually build dwellings in the GB if it's essential use for agricultural or forestry workers. If it's for new communities they'll have gone through a lengthy process and will be designated in local planning policy. It's not very easy to get Planning Permission for.

We've currently got over 300 houses being squeezed onto land near us - and just had a letter through the door saying another 250 are going up opposite the plus a new school - giving us 3 days (over a weekend) to complain in writing.

We have an oversubscribed doctors surgery, roads that aren't substantial enough for any more traffic than we already have, no proper supermarket and a dentist surgery that I've been trying to get in for 14 years. Why the hell do they think this is an acceptable place to plonk what is in effect a new village?

It drives me mad when they do this so understand why OP is annoyed too. My local town has no end of run down houses that could be renovated instead.

Don't we need greenbelt for environmental reasons though? Wildlife habitats?

I 100% agree that planners need to look at the whole infrastructure when allowing developers to build new estates. That isn't confined to greenbelt though.
Near me they have built hundreds of new homes on the site of an former (massive) factory -- so a 'brownfield' site which most people would approve of. However, that is all they have built. Every time anyone from the new homes whats to do anything they have to get in their cars and drive. There are no parks, no GP surgeries, no schools, no shops, no CCs, no community halls - so nowhere for toddler groups / Brownies / Scouts / places of worship / choir / badminton / support groups for anything / weight watchers / youth groups / etc.etc.etc. It is so short sighted and unsustainable. You can't go on and on trying to stuff 'a few extra people' on to facilities that can't cope.

Agree with Mouikey everyone wants houses to be built so long as it does not affect them, I find villages in my area to be the worst culprits, complain there are nothing but second homes and the villages are dying as young people cannot afford to buy, but when a new development is proposed they don’t want it, but I do agree that infrastructure should be put in place, developers rarely build the new schools, medical centres etc that they promise as part of the planning permission but they manage to build the houses tout suite, they should be held to account for that.

We need to house people somewhere. Yes ideally we would preserve our green belts but the alternative in some places is living on the streets.

Perhaps if areas like mine (seaside dorset) they were able to do something abiut the huge number of a) holiday homes and b) 300k houses being bought, knocked down and replaced with 2 or 3 million pound houses then we wouldn't be quit e in this mess.

Everything going up here seems to have less than 1 parking spot per property and zero alternative parking options and poor transport

I think you need to research this a little more before you decide who to direct your rage at.

Central Government gives each Council a target housing number that they have to provide within a certain period, this is called a 5 year housing land supply.

Councils then have to look at all available land, figure out how many houses can go there, and see if they can reach that housing number. They look at things like brownfield land first, and areas of green belt as an absolute last resort if they categorically cannot fit this number anywhere else.

If a Council doesn't provide the set number, they are unable to adopt a development plan, which leaves them with very little power to refuse any housing developments, anywhere, in completely unsuitable locations.

Essentially, Councils are left with a choice of selecting a very carefully chosen area of Green Belt for housing, or having no planning policies and leaving every other area of land in the entire district open for development.

Things like highways, school places etc are carefully calculated, and while things might get tighter, you cannot get planning permission if there is not enough school places, or highway capacity. Developers are either taxed to contribute towards these things, or have to provide them within the development.

Short version: Councils don't just build on Green Belt land willy nilly.

I live near the Peak District and even before I was born they were planning a bypass because of the heavy traffic (I am 53).
But the LA have just decided to join 6 local villages by building new homes inbetween.
However, they don't seem to have any plans to build new schools or GP centres.
Where are all these people supposed to go/
Not to mention the harm that this will do to our only Heritage site.

There is a big development going up near us of 400 houses and it will also impact on roads, schools and other services. The council actually rejected planning several times, but they kept appealing and eventually it got through on a legal technicality

What is really annoying is the people selling the land and the developers will make a huge profit then walk away. Meanwhile the council and tax payers will have to foot the bill to extend the infrastructure when the area isn't suitable for expansion

Are you AONB then rather than green belt?

Mouikey has it right.
Sarf GB not designated for its wildlife value. Statutorily mandated for certain characteristics, openness, prevent coalescence of conurbation, etc.
Wildlife value is either national sites, SSSIs, EU sites, SACs, SPAs, or non-statutory sites (less protected) local wildlife sites.
I think there is probably the usual confusion between Green Belt vs greenfield on this thread.
The time to get involved is at the local plan/site allocation stage. Get in touch with your Parish Council, who will be clued up.
Larger developments have to include schools, shops, doctor’s surgeries & road improvements, all negotiated with local & County Council.
In general, tho, the roadway network is over-capacity; this is partly intentional, to encourage people to use public transport, walk & cycle.

Developers pay LAs huge sums of money for infrastructure. And guess what? That money doesn’t get spent on infrastructure.

Developers (well, housebuyers) cannot keep paying for infrastructure that never materialised.

Yes, that says it all...."sustainable for expansion".
What if you aren't? .