CLA says report won’t protect Green Belts

The CLA says a report on Green Belts jointly published by Natural England and the Campaign to Protect Rural England could do more harm than good.

The rural economy experts say the report is wrongly premised and appears to be suggesting that established planning policy on Green Belts should be used to achieve environmental aims by the back door. They're concerned that the suggestions will instead have a detrimental effect.

CLA President William Worsley said: "Planning policy for Green Belts is set out by the Government and as this report states there are five purposes of Green Belt designation, each stemming from the fundamental aim of Green Belt policy which is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open.

"The aims of Green Belt policy do include references to 'safeguarding the countryside', but that is to protect from encroachment and is not to provide landscape and/or environmental protection. 

"The quality of the landscape is not relevant to the inclusion of land within a Green Belt or its continued protection. It is the purposes of including land which is of paramount importance, and these purposes take precedence over other land use objectives."

 He added that the suggestions in the joint report threatened to weaken Green Belt policy because landscape, nature conservation, and such issues were better dealt with by other policies rather than by the insensitive "presumption against" approach that is mandatory in GB policy decisions.

 It would imply that areas which do not offer such assets need not have Green Belt protection, whereas many have no landscape, nature conservation or heritage value. There were mixed messages in that while renewable energy is cited as a benefit, one or other authors of the report might well oppose a bio fuel energy plant in a Green Belt.

 Finally, Mr Worsley said the CLA is disappointed that Natural England, a government funded and supported agency, had associated itself with a report involving one outside organisation but hadn't offered other organisations the opportunity to co-operate in producing a balancing report.

Fenella Collins MRICS – Senior Planning Adviser

A chartered surveyor with responsibility for CLA policy on planning and housing issues. Advises on policy including national, regional and local planning and the community infrastructure levy.

Phone: 020 7235 0511
Email fenella.collins@cla.org.uk