Please read this paper detailing grey belt sites: Green belt is now grey belt.
Foreword
The London Metropolitan Green Belt (LMGB) as a planning policy has been hugely successful in containing the capital and preventing urban sprawl. In 1940 London and Los Angeles were of a similar area and if London had been allowed to sprawl to the extent that Los Angeles has grown, it would stretch from Brighton to Cambridge.
The LMGB has many economic, social and environmental benefits, apart from its role to restrict urban sprawl and encourage urban regeneration. It protects the capital from flooding and provides opportunities for carbon sequestration, nature regeneration and biodiversity. It provides important physical and mental health and welfare benefits for the city’s inhabitants, and opportunities for recreation and sport as well as food security and rural activities.
The introduction of grey belt has already resulted in the loss of open countryside, often of high quality, as can be seen in the photographs in this paper. It is leading to speculative and piecemeal development with ten out of the twelve planning appeals in 2025 being allowed for proposed development in the London Green Belt where the sites were identified as grey belt.
These sites are not previously developed land, such as redundant petrol stations or car parks, as originally intended. The present definition of grey belt enables the revoking of protection of Green Belt, as is recognised by developers and their legal representatives.
The Government’s grey belt policy is leading to the destruction of the Green Belt whose benefits will not be enjoyed in future. If this policy is not reversed, future generations will live to regret it.
| Richard Knox-Johnston Chair The London Green Belt Council | Peter Waine OBE Chair CPRE Hertfordshire |
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