In British town planning, the green belt is a policy for controlling urban growth. The term, coined by Octavia Hill in 1875, 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. The fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open, and consequently the most important attribute of green belts is their openness.
The Metropolitan Green Belt around London was first proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 then allowed local authorities to include green belt proposals in their development plans. 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.Geography; An Integrated Approach - David Waugh
Green belt policy has been criticised for reducing the amount of land available for building and therefore pushing up house prices, as 70% of the cost of building new houses is the purchase of the land (up from 25% in the late 1950s).
England and Wales
The government formerly set out its policies and principles towards green belts in England and Wales in Planning Policy Guidance Note 2: Green Belts, but this planning guidance was superseded by the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in March 2012. Planning authorities are strongly urged to follow the NPPF's detailed advice when considering whether to permit additional development in the green belt. In the green belt there is a general presumption against inappropriate development, unless very special circumstances can be demonstrated to show that the benefits of the development will outweigh the harm caused to the green belt. The NPPF sets out what would constitute appropriate development in the green belt.
According to the NPPF, there are five stated purposes of including land within the green belt: To check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas To prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another To assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment To preserve the setting and special character of historic towns To assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
Once an area of land has been defined as green belt, the stated opportunities and benefits include: Providing opportunities for access to the open countryside for the urban population Providing opportunities for outdoor recreation near urban areas The retention of attractive landscapes and the enhancement of landscapes, near to where people live Improvement of damaged and derelict land around towns The securing of nature conservation interests The retention of land for local food growing, forestry and related uses.
England Although 16 city and town urban cores are identified by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) who are the present central government department maintaining responsibility for green belts, a countryside interest group, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) continue to group these into 14 green belt areas, the North West green belt encompassing three urban cores.
The area designated as green belt land in England as at 12 October 2023 was estimated at 1,638,420 hectares, about 13 per cent of the land area.
Green belt (MHCLG)Green belt (CPRE) Urban core Bath and Bristol Avon Green Belt Bristol and Bath Birmingham West Midlands Green Belt West Midlands, Birmingham, Coventry Blackpool North West Green Belt Blackpool Burton upon Trent Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote Green Belt Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote Cambridge Cambridge Green Belt Cambridge Carnforth, Lancaster and Morecambe North West Green Belt Lancaster, Morecambe, Carnforth Derby and Nottingham Nottingham and Derby Green Belt Nottingham and Derby Gloucester Gloucester and Cheltenham Green Belt Gloucester and Cheltenham London area Metropolitan Green Belt Greater London Merseyside and Greater Manchester North West Green Belt Merseyside, Greater Manchester Oxford Oxford Green Belt Oxford South and West Yorkshire South and West Yorkshire Green Belt South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire South West Hampshire South West Hampshire/South East Dorset Green Belt Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent Green Belt Stoke-on-Trent Tyne and Wear North East Green Belt Tyne and Wear, Durham and Hexham York York Green Belt York
The distribution of green belt designated land by region of England as in 2003, 2013 and 2023 was as follows:
Region2003 area (hectares) 2013 area (hectares) 2023 area (hectares)* East/London/South East627,160 580,570 574,040 East Midlands79,520 78,95077,410 North East66,330 73,06098,550 North West260,610 262,440254,350 South West106,180 110,620107,970 West Midlands269,140 269,360264,510 Yorkshire and the Humber262,640 264,290261,600 England total1,671,580 1,639,290 1,638,420 * Counts are rounded
The total area of green belt land in England since 2003 was as follows:
Year 2003 2004 2006 2007 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2017/18 Area (hectares) 1,671,580 1,678,190 1,631,830 1,635,670 1,639,650 1,639,530 1,639,530 1,639,480 1,639,160 1,638,610 1,629,510
As well as any underlying re-designations, changes in green belt area are explained in part by alterations in land designation by local authorities, and may also be influenced by improvements with measurement associated with digital mapping. Note that from 2006, estimates exclude the area of Green Belt land in New Forest DC and Test Valley BC (47,300 hectares) which were designated as New Forest National Park in 2005.
In July 2024 the Labour government announced plans to prioritise building on "poor quality and ugly areas" within England's green belt, including brownfield sites, which it termed the "grey belt". When the policy was introduced in December 2024,National Planning Policy Framework - Annex 2 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framework/annex-2-glossary the definition was extended to include previously undeveloped land that did not strongly contribute to green belt purposes. There is a degree of subjectivity, as there is no standard approach to the Green Belt Reviews that determine a location’s contribution to green belt purposes.Pennington Law - https://www.penningtonslaw.com/news-publications/latest-news/2024/nppf-revisions-regarding-the-green-beltRadix Big Tent Housing Commission p30 - https://radixuk.org/wp-content/uploads/FINAL-Housing-Report-OCTOBER-24_EMAIL.pdf A first series of planning approvals on previously undeveloped Green Belt land followed in the weeks after the Grey Belt concept was adopted into the NPPF.
Wales Wales has one green belt, between the cities of Cardiff and Newport.
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland has 30 green belt areas, accounting for approximately 226,600 hectares, about 16 percent of its total area.
Scotland Green belt policy in Scotland is set out in Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) 21, published by the Scottish Government in February 2010. On 29 November, the Government published "Green Belt Policy in Scotland 10/85"
As of 2010 Scotland had 10 green belt areas: Aberdeen, Ayr, Clackmannanshire, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Falkirk and Grangemouth, Greater Glasgow, Midlothian and Stirling. There are also plans for green belts around Dunfermline, Perth and St Andrews.
The Scottish Government is clear that the purpose of green belt designation in the development plan as part of the settlement strategy for an area is to: direct planned growth to the most appropriate locations and support regeneration, protect and enhance the quality, character, landscape setting and identity of towns and cities, and protect and give access to open space within and around towns and cities
However, the Scottish Government recognises that certain types of development might actually promote and support appropriate rural diversification: Development associated with agriculture, including the re-use of historic agricultural buildings, Woodland and forestry, including community woodlands, Horticulture, including market gardening and directly connected retailing, Recreational uses that are compatible with an agricultural or natural setting, and Essential infrastructure such as electronic communications infrastructure and electricity grid connectionsScottish Parliament Green Belt Policy
The Government requires that locally established green belt plans: maintain the identity of a city by the clearly establishing physical boundaries and preventing coalescence; provide countryside for recreation of denizens; and maintain the landscape setting of the city in question. In its Planning Policy (129), the Scottish Government states that: “All public bodies, including planning authorities, have a duty to further the conservation of biodiversity under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004, and this should be reflected in development plans and development management decisions. 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.”
History
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. Various proposals were put forward from 1890 onwards but the first to garner widespread support was put forward by the London Society in its "Development Plan of Greater London" 1919. Alongside the CPRE they lobbied for a continuous belt (of up to two miles wide) to prevent urban sprawl, beyond which new development could occur.
Implementation of the notion dated from Herbert Morrison's 1934 leadership of the London County Council. It was first formally proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935, "to provide a reserve supply of public open spaces and of recreational areas and to establish a green belt or girdle of open space". It was again included in an advisory Greater London Plan prepared by Patrick Abercrombie in 1944 (which sought a belt of up to six miles wide). However, it was some 14 years before the elected local authorities responsible for the area around London had all defined the area on scaled maps with some precision (encouraged by Duncan Sandys to designate a belt of some 7–10 miles wide).
The motives for a green belt around London were not just environmental, Frank Pick the CEO of the London Passenger Transport Board made an economic case; he believed that London Underground had a finite potential capacity which would be breached by the growth of the city's population and overall physical size. Pick presented this case to the Barlow Commission (Royal Commission on the Geographical Distribution of the Industrial Population), arguing that if London's radius grew beyond 12–15 miles, the capital's commuter infrastructure could not cope in financial or capacity terms, to the detriment of city's overall economy. He instead made the case for a number of economically self-sufficient new towns beyond a new green belt.Green sprawl Our current affection for a preservation myth?, Johnathon Manns, The London Society, 2014