Green belt (United Kingdom)
The term, coined by Octavia Hill in 1875,[1][2] refers to a ring of countryside where urbanisation will be resisted for the foreseeable future, maintaining an area where local food growing, forestry and outdoor leisure can be expected to prevail.
In 1955, Minister of Housing Duncan Sandys encouraged local authorities around the country to consider protecting land around their towns and cities by the formal designation of clearly defined green belts.
Biodiversity is important because it provides natural services and products that we rely on, is an important element of sustainable development and makes an essential contribution to Scotland's economy and cultural heritage.”[20] The term emerged from continental Europe where broad boulevards were increasingly used to separate new development from the centre of historic towns; most notably the Ringstraße in Vienna.
This decision was made in tandem with the 1946 New Towns Act, which sought to depopulate urban centres in the South East of England and accommodate people in new settlements elsewhere.
[23][24][25] Other organisations, including the Planning Officers Society,[26] have since responded with specific calls for a review and proposals to balance land release with environmental protection.
[33] Several academics, policy groups and town planning organisations in recent years have criticised the idea and implementation of green belts in the UK.
Green belt policy has been attacked as too rigid in the face of new urban and environmental challenges, principally the lack of housing available in many cities in the UK.
We need a 21st century solution to England's housing needs which puts in place a network of green wedges, gaps and corridors, linking the natural environment and people.".
Authored by the influential English urbanist Jonathan Manns, this called for a "move away from the simplistic and naïve idea that countryside is a sacrosanct patchwork of medieval hedgerows and towards an empirically informed position which once more recognises housing as a need to be met in locations with appropriate environmental capacity".
In March 2014, it was noted that if general inflation had risen as fast as housing prices had since 1971, a chicken would cost £51; and that Britain is "building less homes today than at any point since the 1920s".
Thus the proposal put forward in the Adam Smith report could result in 3.96 to 7.45 million additional car journeys per week on already congested roads around London.
By preventing existing towns and cities from extending normally and organically, they result in more land-extensive housing developments further out – i.e., the establishment beyond the greenbelts of new communities with lower building densities, their own built infrastructure and other facilities, and greater dependence on cars and commuting, etc.
Meanwhile, valuable urban green space and brownfield sites best suited to industry and commerce are lost in existing conurbations as more and more new housing is crammed into them.
[44][45] Commentators such as Alan Evans[46] and Tom Papworth[47] have called for outright abolition of green belts, principally on the grounds that by inhibiting the free use of land they restrict home ownership.
However, in England, where 65% of people are property-owners who benefit from scarcity of building land, the concept of "green belt" has become entrenched as a fundamental part of government policy, and the possibility of reviewing boundaries is often viewed with considerable hostility by environmental charities, neighbouring communities and their elected representatives.
