To help achieve their goal of delivering 1.5m new home over the next five years, Labour have announced plans to make it easier to build on poorer quality parts of the green belt – areas they’re calling “grey belt.”
To understand what grey belt means, we first need to understand the green belt.
Established in the 1950s, green belt is a planning designation given to areas of land surrounding our towns and cities that is expressly designed to stop their outward growth. The green belt has expanded significantly since it was first introduced. Today, it covers almost 13% of England – around twice the area that is actually developed.
It has been very successful in restricting development. The amount of building in green belt areas is 80% lower than it would otherwise have been. And that has an impact on house prices – they’re 20% higher as a result, with prices around 4% higher across England as a whole. The green belt therefore makes a key contribution to our housing crisis – something which Labour have recognised.
Although there is a popular image of the green belt as being beautiful, green countryside full of wildlife, much of it isn’t. The designation has nothing to do with landscape or ecological quality – it is just about limiting growth. In fact, much of the green belt is already developed – with petrol stations and car parks, storage yards and farm buildings, for example – or is underused wasteland.
The government plan to let homes be built on some of those poorer quality areas of land. In their words, “we don’t think it is right that wastelands and old car parks located on the green belt are given the same protections in national policy as rolling hills and nature spots in the green belt.”
Prior to the general election, Labour politicians described the grey belt as “poor-quality scrub land, mothballed on the outskirts of towns” and “poor-quality and ugly areas.” That might be helpful to explain the concept, but it is also a little vague.
Now in government, Labour have set out a more detailed definition in the recently updated National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). It tells us that the "grey belt" is"
land in the green belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. "Grey belt" excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.
What does that mean in practice? Let's work through each part of the definition.
"Previously Developed Land" is the planning jargon for what most of us refer to as brownfield land.
Although those sites can be redeveloped under current rules, that is subject to the green belt not being substantially less “open” after the new development is completed. In practice, that means new buildings have to be of a similar size and in similar locations to those they replace - preventing sites being redeveloped to their maximum potential.
In planning terms not every site with buildings on it counts as brownfield – many uses are excluded. For example, agricultural buildings like barns and chicken sheds aren't brownfield. While a garden centre is considered to be brownfield, a plant nursery isn't. Including uses like these in the definition of grey belt would allow development on a greater number of sites, while meeting Labour’s objective of protecting the most attractive, highest quality parts of the green belt - but that isn't part of the proposals.
The new NPPF does, however, widen the definition of previously developed land to include "large areas of hardstanding" which will help these sites be developed more efficiently. For example, if a site is occupied by a small industrial unit surrounded by a large parking area, the new buildings could previously be no bigger than the building itself – the area used for parking would need to be left free of new buildings. Under the definition, more of the parking area could be developed too.
National planning policy sets out five purposes that the green belt is supposed to achieve. They are:
a) to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;
b) to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another;
c) to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment;
d) to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and
e) to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
Whether a site does not "strongly contribute" to those purposes - the requirement to be classed as grey belt - is subjective. The best way of making that judgement is likely to be to look at the council's own Green Belt Assessment, carried out when local authorities prepare a new local development plan. The Green Belt Assessment will divide the whole of the green belt into separate parcels and then consider to what extent those parcels contribute to each of the five green belt objectives.
It is noticeable that part (c) of the green belt purposes - safeguarding the countryside from encroachment - is specifically excluded from the definition of grey belt. Arguably almost every greenfield, green belt site would perform that role and including it in the test would severely limit the number of potential development sites available.
So a grey belt site is one that doesn't really have any role in preventing large towns from sprawling, preventing neighbouring towns from merging into each other, or in preserving the setting of an historic town. You will notice that this is a very technocratic definition - very different to the more character-drived descriptions - like "under-used wasteland" that were being advanced before the election.
This is another technocratic element to the definition, that wasn't included in the original consultation on the grey belt. Footnote 7 is the part of the NPPF which identifies characteristics of land that still mean development should be prevented even if there is an urgent need for new homes. This includes: habitat sites like Special Areas of Conservation, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, land designated as Local Green Space, a National Landscape, a National Park (or within the Broads Authority) or defined as Heritage Coast, irreplaceable habitats, designated heritage assets and other heritage assets of archaeological interest, and areas at risk of flooding or coastal change.
That's a long list but, in essence, it ensures that those areas of land that are very important for other purposes aren't developed.
Grey belt sites will be delivered in two different ways.
The first is through the existing local plan process. Every council in England should have a local development plan that identifies, amongst other things, how many homes are to be built over the next 15 years, and where those homes should be located. Delivering enough new homes might not be possible without identifying some areas of the green belt for development and, in those cases, grey belt sites should be prioritised.
It will also be possible to secure planning permission for new homes on grey belt sites which are not already identified for development in a local plan - but only if the council are failing to deliver enough homes. That means that either they have delivered less than 75% of the new homes they should have over the previous three years (the "Housing Delivery Test"), or they don't have enough deliverable housing sites available to meet their needs for the next five years (known as a "five year housing land supply").
In both cases, there are a number of "golden rules" that developments will have to meet if planning permission is to be secured.
The requirements to improve infrastructure and new open spaces aren't really any different to what developments are currently expected to provide.
However, the requirement around affordable housing is significant - and complicated. The version of grey belt policy that was originally consulted on included a straightforward requirement for half of all new homes in the grey belt to be affordable. The final version of the policy is more complex.
From now on, new local plans should set a higher affordable housing requirement than for non-green belt sites. While this should ideally require 50% of homes to be affordable, it doesn't have to be if viability testing of the local plan - not individual sites - demonstrates that would not be viable.
Until a new local plan is in place, grey belt should deliver 15% more affordable housing than the plan that is currently in force requires. So, for example, if an adopted local plan requires 20% of all homes to be affordable, a grey belt site would need to deliver 35% affordable housing.
The Strategic Land Group has been working with landowners to deliver planning permissions on their land at our cost and risk for more than 15 years. Our fee is a share of the value of the site once it is sold, so if we don’t succeed, it doesn’t cost you anything. Over that time, we’ve seen a whole range of planning policies come and go. We’re used to quickly understanding new policy, and how it can help landowners secure planning permission. If you know of a site which might be suitable for development as “grey belt” land – or for any other reason – please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a free, no obligation consultation.
