An end to the green belt?
A recent survey by Linden Homes has revealed that an amazing 69% of people in the UK believe the countryside is being concreted over by Gordon Brown and his army of developers.
So, just how much truth exists to their claims?
Actually, it’s a bit of both.
The English Green Belt composes of 1.68 million hectares of land, 13% of the country’s total land area, and this is increasing every year.
Since 1997, a massive 19,000 hectares of land has been added to the green belt, with another 12,000 hectares are set aside for inclusion.
Yet, only 9% of the people surveyed were aware of this, and 72% even went so far to say they felt the green belt was decreasing in size.
When questioned how much land would be required if developers were to meet house building targets for the next 50 years, only 13% guessed correctly at 1%.
CEO of Linden Homes, Philip Davies, stated, “A long and sustained campaign against housebuilding in this country since the Second World War has left a legacy of negative attitudes and suspicion.
"Although most people in the UK are aware there is a chronic housing shortage, often resulting in their children being priced out of the local area, their perceptions of actual levels of development in the UK are very wide of the mark.
"The vast majority of those surveyed, 81%, believed that development should be restricted to brownfield land only where it is available.
"House builders, too, are acutely aware of the need for brownfield land to be developed first, which is why they have already well exceeded the Government's target of 60% of all house building to take place on brownfield by 2008.”
While one side of the coin says the greenbelt is actually increasing, regardless of development, other groups, such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) argue that the real green belt issue is where the development takes place.
Henry Oliver, Head of Planning at the CPRE, says, "The national figures do reveal a 19,000 hectare increase, most of which is around the city of Durham. We welcome that, but the issue is not how much green belt there is, but where it is.
"The government is driving proposals north of London for large house building schemes. This will involve de-designating large areas of green belt.
"Recent government figures show that in the south development on green belt land has increased and areas are being lost. What they give with one hand, they take away with the other."
