Grey Belt… unintended consequences… towns and villages
I am increasingly excited about the Grey Belt. We hosted a wonderful session last week with the brilliant barristers from Six Pump Court Chambers. There was an in-depth and fascinating discussion about the Grey Belt rules.
But let me refresh your memories… The original idea with Grey Belt was to bring some sense and sensibility to some parcels of land with a “Green Belt” designation that clearly wasn’t Green Belt. You know the sort of thing, old car parks and farmyards and generally yards and places that had intensive human activity on it that no person in their right mind would class as “Green Belt”.
We then had the NIMBY chorus break out in full lamentations about all those naughty renewable energy providers who will now build solar farms on the Green Belt so that the land could be reclassified as Grey Belt and all those naught developers can then build houses on the solar farms (don’t shoot the messenger, I am merely relaying things actual Councillors actually said).
As Grey Belt is now kicking in as a “thing” under the NPPF and the other regulations. It has become clear though appeals etc. that there are some very beneficial “unintended consequences”. Or, to put it in laymen’s terms, the Grey Belt concept goes much, much, much further than intended and has opened up possibilities and is breaking the stranglehold of the Green Belt that had been stifling progress and development since its inception just after WW2.
I won’t repeat the relevant NPPF paragraphs and the regulations etc. for that detail, please read the article we published on Tuesday written by Peter Cruikshank of Six Pump Court Chambers.
Again, being a simple sort of person, I will attempt to tell you what could qualify as Grey Belt in ordinary human speak…. Well, I say that, but the reality is that the list of what is NOT Grey Belt is probably sorter than the list of what could be classed as Grey Belt. Things that can’t be Grey Belt is a shorter list! Hooray!
You can’t build between Towns and make them merge… NOTE not Villages, you can build between Villages or a Village and a Town. You can’t classify something as Grey Belt if it has a negative impact on a historic setting or a special ecological importance. You can’t argue it is Grey Belt if you are not prepared to provide 15% more affordable homes than the policy requirement of the LPA and this is capped at 50%, You also can’t argue Grey Belt where the site is not sustainable (i.e. where it is completely reliant on cars etc.)… and one or two other things… and if you want more information you can call me.
As for the rest, we have now seen examples where open “virgin Green Belt” has been classified as “Grey Belt” and development is acceptable. This is EXACTLY what is needed. We have a MASSIVE housing crisis that has partially been caused by the “Green Belt” slowly strangling the prospect of two generations ever owning a home.
Until next week,
Henry
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