Avon Green Belt

Key towns and villages surrounded by or immediately adjoining the green belt include Thornbury, Yate, Chipping Sodbury, Frampton Cotterell, Winterbourne, Coalpit Heath, Keynsham, Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge, Nailsea, Backwell, Portishead, and Clevedon.

The green belt includes parts of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Mendip Hills to the south and the Cotswolds to the east.

[5][6] The Bristol and Bath Green Belt was first established through the county development plans for Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.

In 2002, the draft Joint Structure Plan for the West of England again broadly confirmed the extent of the green belt, and set out the following policy: "A Green Belt shall continue to surround and separate Bristol and Bath, and will be kept open in order to: The policy is subject to further review as part of the West of England Joint Spatial Plan, to be submitted to the UK government in 2018.

They noted that there were only space for 4,300 homes on brownfield land, whereas the three local councils in the region aim to build 85,000 over the next twenty years.