Great Big British Green Belt Balance (or GBB-GBB)
Dear readers, I have invented a new TV game show and this is my pitch for Channel 4 (or anyone who would have me). It is inspired by the popular TV show and I got the idea from reading a couple of very cheery articles this week about sensible decisions on the Green Belt.
But let me set the scene first…
The first was an appeal in East Cambridgeshire where the Council failed to determine an application for a 170 unit retirement care village. The Council indicated that they would refuse permission due to the site’s Green Belt status. The applicant appealed and the inspector granted permission stating that a combination of “deficient local policy support” and “significant market constraints” mean “the identified acute extra care housing needs are unlikely to be realised over the plan period” and therefore, the inspector attributed “very substantial weight” to the proposal’s “significant and meaningful contribution to addressing the need for older people’s extra care housing”. Huzzah for sensibility!
The second was in Shropshire Council where an application for a Solar Farm was branded as "unacceptable adverse impact" and cause unacceptable loss of 50 acres of farmland. The inspector agreed with the developer that benefits of the scheme provided “very special circumstances” that outweighed any potential harm. The inspector added “It is agreed that the proposal is inappropriate development in the green belt. This, by definition, is harmful,” However, the inspector granted planning permission, after pointing out that national policy presumed in favour of renewable energy development, and that this outweighed the negatives. Objections by some of the local NIMBYs included referring to it as an "eyesore" and a "visible monument to this folly". Oh and did I mention that it was also pointed out that sheep would continue to graze the fields, preserving agricultural use of the site… Huzzah again for sensibility!
GBB-GBB Game Show (coming to a Telebox near you soon)
So, my game show (what you all waited for!) It is very simple… We de-allocate ALL the green belt across the entire UK. Every. Last. Square. Inch. and then we have a contest to put it back in the Green Belt and unless the NIMBYs who want it as Green Belt can make a case strong enough to convince the nation in a telephone phone-in and text service vote the land does not go back in the Green Belt.
The telephones and texts will be charged at a premium rate and the money that is made through this exercise will be used to pay for more planners to be trained and work in Council Planning Departments (and pay them a proper salary). A charitable cause if ever there was one.
But on a more serious note, this obsession with the “sacrosanct Green Belt” needs to end. We all use electricity, and we are all going to need a retirement home. We need homes and other faculties and some of it will have to go on the Green Belt.
Until next week,
Henry