10 Jun 2016
For discussion
LSE’s latest research project, to which we've contributed to, looks at London’s Metropolitan Green Belt in the modern context, with an understanding that densification and development on brownfield would not be enough to address housing demands.
"Don’t mention the green belt"
This is always a provocative question, particularly when you travel through east London and take stock of the extent of underdeveloped, underused and simply derelict land.
In fact 42 acres of this type of land has just recently been sold. The former Ford plant in Dagenham achieved a figure of £26m purchased for housing. There are lots of similar sites dotted around east of the "city" any number of which are capable of taking up to 3,000 units along the lines of Royal Wharf and Silvertown.
Added to that is the almost uniform political response to development in the green belt. Politicians have made explicit commitments not to build on the green belt to the point where discussions on housing development seem to be prefaced by the remark ‘Don’t mention the green belt’.
Yet there are lots of reports of individual planning authorities chipping away at the boundaries within their area of control.
LSE and their research
Over the last six months the London School of Economics has been taking a cold look at the ‘green belt’ around London to try and understand its original purpose, its current performance and the trade-offs that come with retaining a concept which is now almost 60 years old and came into being in response to a completely different set of circumstances.
So why shouldn’t there be a more rational assessment of the green belt at this stage given the competing demands?
The LSE’s report ‘A 21st Century Metropolitan Green Belt’ is now being completed and a taster of its content was revealed at an event at the end of May. The research looks at the implications of such a fixed view of the green belt and reviews the original justification. The report discusses possibilities for selective relaxation of protection and puts forward proposals to modernise the policy to meet current needs.
Despite the name, green belt is not an environmental designation. The minister responsible for its expansion in the 1950s, Duncan Sandys said green belt land did not have to be green or even particularly attractive, as its purpose was to stop urban development.
In the post-war period there was a dual approach to delivering development in the south east of England. The Metropolitan Green Belt (MGB) constrained outward growth and the supply of land. At the same time New Towns were created to house people dispersed from larger cities including London.
The report asserts that this link between planned constraint in major conurbations and state-sponsored development at other locations has long since been broken.
The capacity of brownfield land
The report also dismisses the capacity of brownfield land to meet the need and regards densification as capable of making a minor contribution, but not being enough on its own. It concludes that the MGB contributes to the housing crisis by ‘locking up’ potentially developable land. It also forces development to take place outside the MGB leading to longer commutes.
The authors believe that housing could be produced in the MGB in compact developments, on sites with good public transport access to employment without impinging on areas of particular environmental quality. More importantly they believe it could be done while securing the protection of the rest of the green belt.
The green belt is regarded as an effective but blunt policy. It is argued that a planned approach to the MGB review within London could produce development that defines green corridors including by using mechanisms like Metropolitan Open Land. They propose a pioneer corridor identifying the London Stansted Cambridge corridor to act as a stimulus to develop a new approach to green belt policy.
Conditions of opening the green belt
Opening up some MGB land to development should require the meeting of a number of conditions:
- It must provide affordable housing.
- Densities must be optimised.
- Development must contribute to the enhancement of the remaining MGB.
- Housing and employment development must be integrated with public transport provision.
- A mechanism must be in place to manage land values.
In our ‘Vision for London’ we accept the fundamental purpose of the green belt but advocate a review to address the changed circumstances since its introduction.
This work by the LSE is a useful contribution to stimulate debate about the role and performance of the green belt alongside other work on the green belt recently carried out by London First and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.
We participated in a number of the round-tables which fed into this research and the LSE will present its findings at the RICS Planning & Development Conference on the 30 June 2016.
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