Defending the Green Belt
Britain needs new homes.
However, there are all sorts of good reasons why building large blocks of houses in the countryside, especially in the green belt, is the wrong place to put them.
“Residents consistently tell us that they don’t want to see the greenbelt concreted over and sadly Labour’s plan is doing exactly that. This level of building shows they just haven’t listened”
“People living in villages such as Appleton Thorn, Stretton, Higher Walton and Grappenhall all face the prospect of seeing their communities changed beyond all recognition not just from the prospect of new homes being built but also from proposed development of massive logistics parks.
Culcheth is already blighted with a continual stream of HGVs using the Warrington Road, building 200 more homes here is excessive development".
“The addition of 450 new homes in a village like Lymm will impact on the provision of healthcare, school places and roads, we can’t simply build new homes without addressing the very real infrastructure issues and many of our services are already at breaking point. Lymm High is already unable to accommodate all the Children who live in the village.”
“These proposals don’t take sufficient account of land availability elsewhere and whether the needs are met more appropriately in other areas, they’re unfairly skewed towards land south of the Ship Canal. Warrington Conservatives will oppose the greenbelt plans at every stage, we’re already working with advisers and Parish Councils to look at ways to get the Council to change course.”
Warrington Conservatives are urging residents to join them in their fight to overturn the proposals.
However, there are all sorts of good reasons why building large blocks of houses in the countryside, especially in the green belt, is the wrong place to put them.
Whenever you build new homes you need to look at local infrastructure, which may often need to be improved - if the planning authority are doing their job properly they will require the developer to pay a contribution to this through what is called a Section 106 agreement or via an infrastructure levy.
But if you build hundreds of new homes in the countryside you either have to build a whole new infrastructure from scratch or the residents of the new homes will find they are lacking in key social and economic amenities.
And if you build lots of new homes some distance from where the jobs are you will put an increased load on the whole transport network. Including employment areas in a new development may mitigate this problem but will rarely entirely solve it - it is very unlikely that the people who come to live in the new housing will exactly match the jobs in the new employment site so you will have people commuting both into and out of the new mini-town you have built in the countryside.
These are just some of the reasons why intelligent planning authorities make every effort to encourage building on brownfield sites first, and only allow development on greenfield sites as a last resort and when that development has been very carefully planned with an emphasis on the environment and sustainability. Putting the appropriate rules for this into the council's local plan will, of course, add cost to the development of greenfield sites, but this has the positive effect of equalising the cost to society with that on brownfield sites and should push more developers to be more imaginative in seeking development sites which do not destroy so much of our countryside.
As a former planning portfolio holder I keep an eye on what is going on around the country in planning terms, and I see that an example of how not to do it was provided this week by Warrington's Labour council, who published a revised local plan proposing to put 7,000 more homes in the green belt.
Commenting on Labour's proposals, Cllr Andy Carter says this level of development in the greenbelt shows how out of touch the Council are:“Residents consistently tell us that they don’t want to see the greenbelt concreted over and sadly Labour’s plan is doing exactly that. This level of building shows they just haven’t listened”
“People living in villages such as Appleton Thorn, Stretton, Higher Walton and Grappenhall all face the prospect of seeing their communities changed beyond all recognition not just from the prospect of new homes being built but also from proposed development of massive logistics parks.
Culcheth is already blighted with a continual stream of HGVs using the Warrington Road, building 200 more homes here is excessive development".
“The addition of 450 new homes in a village like Lymm will impact on the provision of healthcare, school places and roads, we can’t simply build new homes without addressing the very real infrastructure issues and many of our services are already at breaking point. Lymm High is already unable to accommodate all the Children who live in the village.”
“These proposals don’t take sufficient account of land availability elsewhere and whether the needs are met more appropriately in other areas, they’re unfairly skewed towards land south of the Ship Canal. Warrington Conservatives will oppose the greenbelt plans at every stage, we’re already working with advisers and Parish Councils to look at ways to get the Council to change course.”
Warrington Conservatives are urging residents to join them in their fight to overturn the proposals.
Comments
There is no land anywhere in Cumbria which has been designated as Metropolitan Green Belt.
Though of course quite a lot of land in Copeland is in the Lake District National Park and far more strongly protected than the MGB.
However, I have certainly made points like those in the above post to colleagues on CBC and CCC when discussing planning issues.
And during the period of about fifteen years when I was a member of planning committees on an authority which DID have green belt land, I never once voted to approve an application of which the professional advice from council officers said that it was contrary to green belt policy and should be refused on those grounds.