REDEFINING THE GREEN
BELT WILL HELP TACKLE THE
UK’S HOUSING CRISIS
Suggest building on Britain’s ‘green belt’ and most people will
recoil in horror at the idea, believing developers are in a rush to
concrete over great swathes of the English countryside. When asked
to define the green belt most people conjure up romantic images of
the Cotswolds, rural Devon, or the Yorkshire Dales – but in reality a
significant portion of it is actually brownfield land with little or no
environmental value. And by lifting out-of-date planning restrictions
and building on such land, we could do much to help alleviate the
UK’s severe housing crisis.
The issue is currently high on the news agenda, partly due to two
heavyweight Tories pitching into the debate, with Jacob Rees-Mogg
declaring that we need to consider building houses on the greenbelt
and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss saying the Government
must consider building new homes in the countryside. Commercial
real estate firm CBRE recently published a report suggesting that
even if homes were built on the greenbelt they would not be
affordable and would do little to address the housing crisis.
We should certainly be in no doubt as to the scale of that crisis.
Britain has a dangerous housing shortage. The government’s own
statistics show we need to build around 300,000 new homes a year,
just to keep up with demand. Homelessness is on the rise, with
nearly 80,000 households – and 123,000 children – currently living
in temporary accommodation