Metropolitan Green Belt

The Metropolitan Green Belt is a statutory green belt around London, England. It comprises parts of Greater London and the six adjoining "home counties",[n 1] parts of two of the three districts of the small county of Bedfordshire and a small area in Copthorne, Sussex.[n 2][1][2] As of 2017/18, Government statistics show the planning designation covered 513,860 hectares (1,269,800 acres) of land.[3]

"Metropolitan green belt" redirects here. For other uses, see Green belt (disambiguation).

The Metropolitan Green Belt (outlined in red) among other green belts of England

History

For some years after 1580 Elizabeth I of England banned new building in a three-mile wide belt around the City of London, in an attempt to stop the spread of plague. However, this was not widely enforced, relatively short-lived and it was possible to buy dispensations which reduced the effect.[4]

The concept was also inspired by those elsewhere in Europe, one being inner buffer zones and broad boulevards to separate non-ancient parts. One re-used extensive ramparts more like protective fields to serve old city walls, the Ringstraße, in inner Vienna before 1900 in which numerous parks have been laid out.

The first major proposals for a green belt were put forward from 1890 onward, but the first to garner widespread support was put forward by the London Society (LS) in its Development Plan of Greater London 1919. The LS, alongside the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), first lobbied for a belt (initially of up to two miles wide) to prevent urban sprawl, beyond which new development could occur; this was not realised. The great interwar Britain housing boom, from 8 million homes in 1921 to 11.3 million in 1939, saw most of today's Greater London apart from its very edge developed too densely to be conferred any near-contiguous green belt status. The great increase in private motor transport continued into the 1950s. Despite new roads and the London Underground, London traffic congestion and pollution was forecast to become highly problematic unless development could be encouraged outside of a contiguous capital city. A solution emerged from study of the localised preservation of the character of the couronne périurbaine (around-town crown) surrounding Paris, and a movement to expand instead satellite towns and other towns in France. In 1947, Jean-François Gravier successfully advocated to the French government major policies to reduce "regional disparity".[5] Labour's Attlee ministry acted similarly in Britain, first enacting the New Towns Act 1946 and issuing Circulars and Planning Policies for local government councils to implement including accelerating the designation of the Metropolitan Green Belt.

The first policy groundwork to the Metropolitan Green Belt was in Herbert Morrison's 1934 leadership of the London County Council. It was first formally proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935, "to provide a reserve supply of public open spaces and of recreational areas and to establish a green belt or girdle of open space". The ongoing policy decisions made were approved and entrenched in an advisory Greater London Plan prepared by Patrick Abercrombie in 1944 (which sought a belt of up to six miles, 9.7 km wide). After passage of the Green Belt Act 1938, it took 14 years for the elected local authorities responsible for the area around London to define the area on scaled maps with some precision. Following the establishment of the belt around London, feedback being received, and statements and debates in the House of Commons, other authorities nationwide were similarly encouraged in 1955 by Minister Duncan Sandys to designate a belt of all undeveloped land. As to London it was idealised to extend to land not earmarked for building "7 to 10 miles deep all around the built-up area of Greater London".[6]

New provisions for compensation in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 allowed local authorities to incorporate green belt proposals in their first development plans. The codification of Green Belt policy and its extension to areas other than London came with Sandys' annexed Circular 42/55 urging the Clerk of the Council of all local planning authorities (impliedly who had not done so already) to establish Green Belts "wherever it is desirable....(a) to check further growth of a large built-up area; (b) to prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another; or (c) preserve the special character of a town."[7] This decision was made in tandem with the New Towns Act 1946, which accompanied other acts turning to commercial use or low density bomb-stricken parts of Inner London, providing new homes for residents in districts of Outer London which would accept social housing and founding the post-war new towns. Created under the New Towns Act outside of the belt were Basildon, Bracknell, Harlow, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes and Stevenage. Much funding was outlaid in new roads, railway stations and social housing. Contrasting to these new towns such a degree of social housing was still as strongly resisted as possible in upmarket suburbs and most of the existing exurbs well-connected to London in the new Green Belt which almost unwaveringly elected majority-Conservative councils. Such private housing-dominant bastions of the Green Belt being Edgware, Amersham, Staines upon Thames, Surbiton, Sevenoaks and Epping.

In the 1938–1950s period, earmarking of the Green Belt intra-London infill areas continued to be earmarked for housing and those to "round off" the shape of London as official policy. A direct consequence was that when London was redrawn (namely from the 1889 County of London to Greater London) its area in 1965 was made five times greater.[8] This selective and encouraged urbanisation, coupled with the New Towns, ensured authorities did not need to expect a shortage of housing and were centrally lobbied (and in some cases also locally lobbied) to designate land as Green Belt in order to offset congestion and pollution consequent upon their policies of growth.

As the outward growth of London was seen to be firmly repressed, residents owning properties further from the built-up area also campaigned for this policy of urban restraint, partly to safeguard their own investments but often invoking the paradigm English thinking running from John Ruskin to at least John Betjeman, a scenic/rustic argument which lays the blame for most social ills upon urban influences and which leads few retired people to live in London. In mid-1971, mindful of the new towns in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, the government decided to extend the Metropolitan Green Belt northwards to include almost all of Hertfordshire. The Metropolitan Green Belt now covers parts of 68 different Districts or Boroughs.

Extension and reduction

See also: Population of the United Kingdom, Conservation in the United Kingdom, Thames Basin Heaths, urban forest, Roads in England, and urban sprawl

London's green belt was extended after 1955, in places to a distance of 35 miles out. The belt is subject to minor annual variations, and covers an area approximately three times the size of London.

Extension has taken place to take in large parts of the Surrey Hills, Chiltern Hills and three of the areas known as various Wealds including Epping Forest, as such extension pre-dates certain largely duplicative protections which cover those areas, particularly Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Redesignation includes for transport or civil engineering infrastructure, housing and non-agricultural industry, retail and non-green or blue buffer leisure. In general agriculture and open-air leisure uses, including golf courses, and fresh water reservoirs (often used for sailing), can be designated green belt land.

All Local Authorities have the option of limited green belt land release in their Local Plans, according to legally necessary "exceptional circumstances" envisioned by the 1955 Act.[9][10][11][12][13]

Debate and controversy

The London Society heightened debate about the city's green belt in 2014 in its report entitled "Green Sprawl".[14][15][16][17][18] Other organisations, including the Planning Officers Society,[19] echoed with specific calls for a UK Governmental review and proposals to balance land release for with concepts to compensate habitat loss and mitigate pollution, restitutionally (as if never converted).[20][21][22]

The Adam Smith Institute wrote a paper under its core ethos of economic liberalism challenging the goals of nature and environmental protection groups who advocate greater urban density. The paper highlighted the Metropolitan Green Belt had land to build a million typical closer London fringe (low-to-medium) density homes within ten minutes walk (800m) of existing train stations, specifically circa 20,000 hectares (77 sq mi). It gently critiqued 10,000 hectares (39 sq mi) of golf course land.[23][24]

A survey in 2016, by Ipsos Mori, found that many Londoners, particularly those who live in the most affected areas, think the trend towards ever taller, bolder skyscrapers has gone too far. More than 400 buildings of more than 20 floors in 2016 were tentatively proposed by developers in London.[25] Among respondents, six out of ten backed a limit on the height of new skyscrapers, with the same proportion backing restrictions on the number of buildings with more than 50 floors.[25]

Designated area

Green belt land in north Havering

The table lists the areas designated as the Metropolitan Green Belt in 2014. Between 2009 and 2014 there was a reduction of 435 hectares. By 2014 the only Inner London Borough to have had Green Belt, Greenwich, had lost its few acres of green belt designation.[26]

Every borough or equivalent district of the reduced counties of Surrey and Hertfordshire has Green Belt as does Bedfordshire, a county which has never contributed to present definition of London and has just 3 local government units. Four of five districts in Buckinghamshire, 4 of 6 in Berkshire, 9 of 14 in Essex, 7 of 13 in Kent, 18 of the 32 London boroughs, and 1 of the 13 Sussex districts/boroughs/unitary authorities has Green Belt.

District (planning authority)	Region of England	Ceremonial county	Area (hectares)
Aylesbury Vale	South East	Buckinghamshire	4,800
Barking and Dagenham	London	Greater London	530
Barnet	London	Greater London	2,380
Basildon	East	Essex	6,950
Bexley	London	Greater London	1,120
Bracknell Forest	South East	Berkshire	3,840
Brentwood	East	Essex	13,700
Bromley	London	Greater London	7,730
Broxbourne	East	Hertfordshire	3,310
Castle Point	East	Essex	2,750
Central Bedfordshire	East	Bedfordshire	28,220
Chelmsford	East	Essex	12,850
Chiltern	South East	Buckinghamshire	17,380
Croydon	London	Greater London	2,310
Dacorum	East	Hertfordshire	10,690
Dartford	South East	Kent	4,110
Ealing	London	Greater London	310
East Hertfordshire	East	Hertfordshire	17,530
Elmbridge	South East	Surrey	5,620
Enfield	London	Greater London	3,060
Epping Forest	East	Essex	31,680
Epsom and Ewell	South East	Surrey	1,560
Gravesham	South East	Kent	7,670
Guildford	South East	Surrey	24,040
Haringey	London	Greater London	60
Harlow	East	Essex	640
Harrow	London	Greater London	1,090
Havering	London	Greater London	6,010
Hertsmere	East	Hertfordshire	8,040
Hillingdon	London	Greater London	4,970
Hounslow	London	Greater London	1,230
Kingston upon Thames	London	Greater London	640
Luton	East	Bedfordshire	140
Maidstone	South East	Kent	530
Medway	South East	Kent	1,340
Mid Sussex	South East	West Sussex	20
Mole Valley	South East	Surrey	19,640
Newham	London	Greater London	80
North Hertfordshire	East	Hertfordshire	14,250
Redbridge	London	Greater London	2,070
Reigate and Banstead	South East	Surrey	8,890
Richmond upon Thames	London	Greater London	140
Rochford	East	Essex	12,570
Runnymede	South East	Surrey	6,140
Sevenoaks	South East	Kent	34,400
Slough	South East	Berkshire	860
South Bucks	South East	Buckinghamshire	12,350
Southend-on-Sea	East	Essex	610
Spelthorne	South East	Surrey	3,320
St Albans	East	Hertfordshire	13,140
Stevenage	East	Hertfordshire	260
Surrey Heath	South East	Surrey	4,190
Sutton	London	Greater London	620
Tandridge	South East	Surrey	23,300
Three Rivers	East	Hertfordshire	6,840
Thurrock	East	Essex	11,920
Tonbridge and Malling	South East	Kent	17,060
Tunbridge Wells	South East	Kent	7,130
Uttlesford	East	Essex	3,810
Waltham Forest	London	Greater London	840
Watford	East	Hertfordshire	410
Waverley	South East	Surrey	21,080
Welwyn Hatfield	East	Hertfordshire	10,250
Windsor and Maidenhead	South East	Berkshire	16,480
Woking	South East	Surrey	4,030
Wokingham	South East	Berkshire	2,900
Wycombe	South East	Buckinghamshire	15,630
TOTAL			514,060

Notes and references

Notes

1. The six adjoining counties are Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey
2. The adjoining counties fall in the South East and East of England regions which are not units of local government and have certain strategic central governmental uses.

References

1. "Area of Designated Green Belt Land". London Datastore. Greater London Authority. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
2. "Mid Sussex Local Plan, May 2004"
3. "Local Planning Authority Green Belt: England 2017/18" (PDF). Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
4. Halliday, Stephen (2004). Underground to Everywhere. Sutton Publishing Limited. p. 118. ISBN 0-7509-3843-9.
5. Paris et le désert français, 1947
6. Annex to Circular 42/55 — the Statement to the House of Commons by Rt. Hon. Duncan Sandys, Minister for Planning on 26 April 1955
7. "Past, The last 80 years". Beyond the Green Belt. The Building Centre. 16 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2019.
8. See the size of the County of London, 74,903 acres (303.12 square km); compare Greater London
9. National Planning Policy Framework 2018, paragraph 136
10. R (Hunston Properties Ltd) v SSCLG and St Albans City and District Council [2013] EWCA Civ 1610 (12 December 2013):
11. Gallagher Homes v Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council [2014] EWHC 1283. (Admin) (30 April 2014)
12. R(IM Properties) v Lichfield DC and others [2014] EWHC 2440 (Admin) (18 July 2014)
13. Plan Making Case Law Update published by and for the Local Government Association No. 5 Chambers Planning Advisory Service, Paper 4: Green Belt, November 2014
14. Manns, J., "Green Sprawl: Our Current Affection for a Preservation Myth?", London Society, London, 2014
15. "'London's green belt isn't sacrosanct … we need to build homes on". Standard.co.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
16. "Peter Murray: Is London's Green Belt overprotected? - onoffice magazine". Onofficemagazine.com. Archived from the original on 22 February 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
17. "Are they Green *Belts* by Accident?". Spatial-economics.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
18. "Why we need reform of the green belt in London and the South East - Homes For Britain". Homesforbritain.org.uk. 4 February 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
19. "Planning for a Better Future : Our planning manifesto for the next government" (PDF). Planningofficers.org.uk. 15 March 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
20. "The Green Belt: A Place for Londoners?", London First, London, 2015
21. "Delivering Change: Building Homes Where we Need Them", Centre for Cities, London, 2015
22. "AECOM" (PDF). Aecom.com. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
23. "Press Release: New paper reveals where London's Green Belt must be built on to curtail housing crisis". Adamsmith.org. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
24. Tom Papworth. "a garden of one's own : Suggestions for development in the metropolitan Green Belt" (PDF). Static1.squarespace.com. Retrieved 2 December 2017.
25. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/27/londoners-back-skyscraper-limit-skyline "Londoners back limit on skyscrapers as fears for capital’s skyline grow" Rob Davies, The Guardian 27 Aug 2016
26. "Area of designated Green Belt land 1 by local planning authority as at 31 March 2014" (XLSX). Gov.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2017.

• Outskirts, by John Grindrod

External links

• London Green Belt Council - Interactive Map