please empty your brain below
There will be some building on Green Belt land - this has to be admitted. But exceptions must be carefully evaluated, with, ideally, builders' profits kept well outside the factors considered.
dg writes: In London, 7.1%.
It never said what there would be instead, perhaps because the pre-war campaigners assumed our economy would still support market gardens and small dairy herds within easy trucking distance to urban centres. Hence they defined 'open-ness' as the key feature.
But nowhere stays 'open' without being managed, it just reverts to impenetrable scrub. And a few fields are rented out for horses, or as 'temporary' builders' storage, etc. until somethimg more profitable turns up. But what?
If you want 'pretty' that takes investment (thank you National Trust & others' subscriptions). If you want biodiversity corridors that takes investment (thank you Wildlife Trusts & others scrabbling for grants).
If you want housing, that takes land-banking to accumulate a large enough site to make it profitable through planning to new-builds (hopefully before a recession craters your borrowing covenants).
Like the NHS, the Green Belt is an English cultural icon that conceals many expensive & complicated issues.
But once any bit of it has been de-designated (and there are little nibbles each time a Council updates its Local Plan every 10 years or so), it's gone for good.
The English have never really known what they want from their countryside, ever since they gave up living there (mostly in poverty) to move into towns, and then opted to import the bulk of their daily food from cheaper labour abroad.
I also think it's sometimes being used dis-ingeniously by Nimby's trying to invoke its holy aura, just to block development when in fact the law doesn't apply.
I'm quite glad it's a blunt instrument, or else you'd have ended up with a sprawling London of 12m people, putting even more pressure on the overloaded railways and roads of Central London
London's Green Belt is vital in preventing the urban sprawl that would afflict the South-East of England if unrestricted development was allowed. The Green Belt does not have to be 'beautiful' to prevent urban sprawl and arguments about 'giving up' open areas because they are not rolling meadows or leafy woods are spurious.
It is acknowledged that spending time in the countryside is good for health, both mental and physical. The Green Belt is countryside that is accessible for Londoners and it's worth keeping.
The planning system in general is similar - for sustainable growth, we should be concentrating development near tube stations - eg replacing 2-storey houses by flats. But the default planning assumptions do not allow that. Again, much easier to ban it, since the people who suffer (neighbours) will complain loudly while the benefits are spread much more widely.
I fully agree we need this usefully blunt instrument. Overlay the map with the London National Park City one, and count our blessings. There is still plenty of space for new housing in the right places.
The clamour is to build outwards, build upwards, build downwards... until the whole country has been concreted over and life is one big, congested, cramped, dystopian nightmare.
When will people realise that having unlimited sprogs is simply not sustainable?
But we might have got a similar discussion if the article had contained just two words and no pictures. Instead we have been spoiled by a well-illustrated account of a very interesting expedition to explore just some of the quirks resulting from this blunt-instrument, and also a reference to some fascinating maps. All done in DG's inimitable style and quality.
To quote a modern-day bard, "England's green and pleasant land, is not there to put cash in your hand." (from Sons and Daughters of Robin Hood by Damh the Bard)
Ok, so some of it might not be pretty, but it's still vital habitat. And like you say, once it's gone you can't put it back again.
Don't get me started on what HS2 is going to destroy! :(
The green belt was supposed to protect the countryside from development.
It now isn't, and indeed, in many cases, is just a 'green band' running through unsustainable urban-desity development without infrastructure inflicted on what were once green and pleasant lands - in their place are now just soul-less dormitories for commuters. Utterly unsustainable.
The green belt is now a concept that is outdated and urgently needs reforming, if huge tranches of valuable agricultural land, and its wildlife, and environmental benefits, just beyond it, are to be saved.
Population growth is unsustainable in this country. Contraceptives have been free in England to all since 1974 (and for some since 1961).
Look at the ONS figures.
In a few years time the rest of you who think like Sarah will catch up with the thinking of just a few of us. I think there are 5 or 6 of us now who regularly comment on this issue on here.
For example: I've been highlighting the dangers of plastics (or, more correctly, poor disposal routes for plastics) for 30 years, glysophate for 20, and pharmaceutical products handed out like smarties (and without warnings) by doctors for 25, over-consumption of meat for 40, and now the world is beginning to wake up, and many 'celebs' are getting very rich off the back of their 'ground-breaking' media work.
But, the green belt problem is about much, much, more than too-rapid population growth.
The 'London problem' is currently being solved by the surrounding counties mopping up London overspill. People who buy the urban-density housing in the countryside that has jumped over the green belt are causing huge, huge, issues for existing, often quite rural, communities.
No infrastructure is put in before these huge new developments are finished, and often S106 agreements made between developers and councils are broken (and not enforced/enforceable), and many LAs are not collecting the CILs (community infrastructure levies) that they could, that should be funding the infrastructure.
Why were so many Tory councils in the home counties were trounced at the local elections a fortnight ago? Over-development of the countryside, based on flawed/out-dated government-imposed figures for housing needed, in areas just beyond London's green belt was a major issue.
Secondary, the UK is far too London centric, it's not healthy to just let London keep growing and growing, whether on the Green Belt or beyond it, we need to spread the economic development across the whole country, rather than tarmacking the entire South East.
Hale Wharf is going to be a good place to live; the Lee and Wetlands next door, brilliant public transport links!
After the recent tax changes, the Buy-to-Let'ters were actively targeted with these schemes ('buy a room and rent it out to students') but I'm sceptical about it all ending happily.
dg writes: Hale Wharf has not yet been built. Hale Village, by the station, contains 693 student flats.
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