End of Greenbelt?
If you believe even a tiny amount of what you read in the local and national press these days, as well as apply a certain interpretation to what the government has been saying of late, you might well come to the conclusion that our “sacred” greenbelt is under threat like never before. Indeed, the press seems to be reflecting the opinion held amongst certain echelons of middle class England that it’s all going to be swept away by thousands of acres of glass, steel and concrete as the country enters a massive reckless housing boom. This is the view of many urban moralists and those who live in areas that are “under threat”, and it seems to have reached fever pitch. So how much truth is there in this claim, and what is the real story behind what is going to happen to the green belt?
To start with, I would say that anyone promoting a cause so politically charged probably, how shall we say, massages the truth a little in order to attract publicity and make the strongest possible case. One of the central planks of the arguments for those believing the green belt is under threat of annihilation is the government’s intention to shake up the housing market and dramatically increasing the rate of house construction in England over the next decade, which would necessitate bulldozing massive tracts of beautiful countryside. This would certainly be undesirable if it was true, but a closer look at all the options on the table tells a different story.
The three scenarios highlighted in the recent Barker Review give three visions of increases in house building, and their effect on the market, and in particular, the ability of first-time buyers to purchase their own home. However, if you does the sums and looks at the most extreme scenario, building 1.2 million houses over the next ten years, this would actually only amount to a tiny proportion of the developable land in this country – about 2% in fact. Since around 11% of the land mass of this country is classified as urban, an additional 2% is not a significant number when taken over a period of many years. Indeed, planning officers now believe that up to 25% of green belt land in and around London is in fact nothing more than barren wasteland, serving no purpose and benefiting nobody, and certainly not the environment, so the figures about green belt and development land can be deceptive if taken at face value.
In addition to this, the green belt has actually increased in size over the past half a decade or so, and it now occupies a greater area than all of our towns and cities put together. This is a fact that the nimby lobby might not be too keen on publicising. In actual fact we all live on a tiny area of the county, less than 10 per cent in fact. This massive focus on protecting the green belt at all costs has had ramifications for those who have bought new houses, as they are forced further and further away from the places where they work and live a large part of their lives. The cost to the country as whole, economically and socially, is certainly worthy of consideration.
The government simply isn’t going to abandon the principle of protecting our green fields to any significant extent, both because it isn’t necessary and would be politically extremely damaging in the long term. It isn’t necessary because we can build many of the needed homes on the barren scrubland that frankly serves no purpose and is an eyesore. Allowing builders to run amuck in the countryside would obviously alienate large sections of important voters who feel a connection with the plight of those in the besieged urban green belt and who feel that the same thing could happen to them.
What right do these moralists have to determine where people can live in the country – the attitude seems to amount to “I can live here in my large house, but I’ve decided that you can’t”. The answer is that they don’t, but you can’t really blame them. People have to look after their own interests, and it’s human nature to put these interests above the needs of the wider community. The most important thing is necessity – people do what is most necessary to them at the time. Right now, the most necessary thing for those who live close to the green belts is to protect their investment and their future. The most necessary thing for the government is to be seen to take action that both solves the housing crisis to some extent but also keeps the voters happy.
The green belt was created after the Second World War to prevent our towns and cities growing into each other. More than fifty years have since passed, and whilst the idea of protecting the heritage of our beautiful countryside is valid and relevant, the prescriptive nature of preventing development on all land within a “belt” without actually assessing what we are protecting seems a little out of date. I think that the green belt status could well evolve into something more useful – perhaps the creation of a system that protects our areas of natural beauty through a careful assessment of what environmental benefit each area has on a local and national scale. So rather than a vanishing green belt, I suspect that we will see a transient, changing green belt, expanding in some areas and be reduced in others. The unattractive, urban green belt areas will probably go, but they’re not much of a loss to anyone. Nobody can argue that there isn’t going to be any impact on the countryside to a small extent – new houses have to go somewhere once all the brownfield and inner city sites have been used up. What we will hopefully see is a more intelligent use of land. Doubtless the nimby’s will oppose every new house building project.