A radical shift in planning policy, provides immediate opportunities both for promoting sites for consideration in Green Belt reviews and for advancing development proposals in the Green Belt 鈥� prompting the question 鈥� How Grey is your Green Belt?
Green Belt policy in this country has remained unchanged for many years with the 鈥渧ery special circumstances鈥� test for 鈥渋nappropriate development鈥� being a very high bar to meet. With most development proposals in the Green Belt attracting a high degree of public opposition, the task of reviewing the national policy to make it more fit for purpose has been a thistle too thorny to grasp for previous governments. However, faced with a severe housing shortage and the immense task of seeking to deliver 1.5m homes, plus stimulating economic growth, the Labour mantra of 鈥渂uild, build, build鈥� has resulted in a radical overhaul of Green Belt policy as set out in the December 2024 NPPF revisions. This was followed at the end of February with updated Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) which elaborates on the new NPPF policy.
Together these documents very significantly widen the scope for development of sites that are currently in the Green Belt, both by requiring local authorities to undertake Green Belt reviews to identify sites for release where needed to meet housing and economic needs, and also by setting out a revised approach to assessing proposals for development on sites still within the Green Belt. The latter means that there is now far wider scope for development to be deemed 鈥渘ot inappropriate鈥�. The most significant change is the introduction of the concept of 鈥済rey belt鈥�. This is a subset of Green Belt where controls on development are significantly loosened if specific criteria are met.
The 星空体育app下载 Planning and Development team can advise on all of the above matters, so please do contact us if you have any questions.
