Housing need can be met without substantial loss to the green belt, according to research by Carter Jonas.
The national property consultancy’s new report, Rethinking the Green Belt, finds that, if all of the new government’s intended 1.5 million homes were built on green belt land (which Carter Jonas acknowledged would almost certainly not be the case), this would only equate to 3% of the current extent of the green belt.
The above assumes an average plot size of 0.033 hectares (Carter Jonas research).
Carter Jonas emphasised that any green belt “land take” would be “far lower” as the government was prioritising brownfield and non-green belt locations. “Hence the quantum of land to be removed from the green belt is likely to be pretty modest in the overall scheme of things.”
As a regional indication – and still based on delivering entirely on green belt – if housing stock were increased by 6% to align with Labour’s housebuilding target, in London, such an increase would require 21.1% of green belt land, Carter Jonas’ research shows.
Contrastingly, in five other English regions – the South East, North West, North East, East of England, West Midlands, and Yorkshire and the Humber – a 6% increase in stock would equate to less than 3% of green belt land being released.
“Our research shows that housing need can be met without substantial loss to the green belt,” said David Churchill, partner at Carter Jonas. “We are not advocating all new homes being located on the green belt but are suggesting that there are strategic benefits in releasing some green belt land for housing.”
For example, Churchill explained, releasing green belt land could reduce the number of “leapfrogging” developments – schemes located further from urban areas than is ideal which currently leads to increased carbon footprints through extensive commutes.
The report considers the potential of green belt to address housing need, finding that some releases would potentially deliver sustainable edge-of-town schemes “within close proximity to transport connections and amenities without compromising the high-quality, biodiverse, and environmentally sensitive land”.
To reach this conclusion, Carter Jonas looked at major transport routes running through the green belt. According to the research, “no fewer” than 60% of the junctions on the A40 fall within the green belt.
Carter Jonas’ research also analyses the green belt’s composition and purpose. On the latter, the organisation said the green belt was not primarily created to protect the natural environment – this was the premise of environmental designations, including National Parks and National Landscapes (previously Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty).
With Carter Jonas’ data showing similar land uses between green belt and non-green belt areas (for example, 6.8% of green belt land having being developed against 9% of non-green belt land), it stated that “the green belt is no more than a planning policy tool to be deployed for specific purposes rather than a landscape or ecological designation as some might incorrectly assume, and which might result in markedly different land use data”.
Read Carter Jonas’ full article on Rethinking the Green Belt on the Housebuilder website.
