Press release
BUILDING ON GREEN BELT LAND - RESPONSE TO SMF REPORT
- Date
- 14th August 2007
- Description
- In response to a report published tomorrow by the Social Market Foundation entitled 'Should we preserve the green belt?', the BPF has issued the following statement.
Ian Fletcher, BPF residential policy director, said:
“The majority of the British Property Federation’s members are seeking to build sustainable communities through urban regeneration projects inside our towns and cities, and are therefore not seeking to build on the green belt.
“While a mature debate on this issue is welcome, often people end up talking at cross-purposes. The government’s target of 60% development on brownfield land needs to be put into context of the area being talked about. For England, it is being met and exceeded, but for some areas or cities experiencing strong growth will be challenging. We therefore need to look at where in the country the new homes are actually needed.
“There is also often confusion between ‘green field’ and ‘green belt’ land. The green belt is land around urban areas protected from development, designed to protect rural communities, improve air quality and stop the urban sprawl. Not all green field land is green belt and you can therefore expand housing numbers beyond brownfield development without necessarily having to build on the green belt. Ultimately, the challenges of planning are such that you cannot ever please everyone all of the time,
“The fact is that this report tell us nothing we didn’t already know. If a quarter of a million houses are to be built each year, it’s blindingly obvious that some of these will have to be belt on undeveloped land. It isn’t a question of ‘should we preserve the green belt’, because of course we should. The question is how to find an efficient and sustainable solution to developing our housing needs over the next ten years and beyond, and where the required investment is going to come from.”
Contact Andrew Teacher, BPF media manager on ateacher@bpf.org.uk or 07968 124545
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. Green belt
‘Green belt’ is a policy or land use designation used in land use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas.
The objectives of green belt policy are to:
• protect natural or semi natural environments
• improve air quality within urban areas
• ensure that urban dwellers have access to countryside
• protect the unique character of rural communities which might otherwise be absorbed by expanding suburbs.
Green belt policy was pioneered in the United Kingdom in 1956 after pressure from the CPRE and various other organisations. There are fourteen green belt areas, in the UK covering 16,716 km², or 13% of England, and 164 km² of Scotland; for a detailed discussion of these, see Green belt (UK).
2. British Property Federation
The British Property Federation (BPF) is the voice of property in the UK, representing companies owning, managing and investing in property. This includes a broad range of businesses comprising commercial property owners, the financial institutions and pension funds, corporate landlords, local private landlords, as well as all those professions that support the industry. The BPF estimates that its members manage property assets worth approximately £200 billion. The property industry is a vital component of a successful economy. As an industry, commercial property contributes 5.6 per cent of UK GDP.