Green-belt building 'needed'
Wednesday, 15 Aug 2007 10:54
More homes will have to be built on greenfield sites, the report warns
The government will have to build 1.8 million new homes on greenfield sites if it is to meet ambitious housing targets, a new report has warned.
Ministers pledged to build an additional three million new homes by 2020 in the recent green paper on housing.
But there is currently only enough brownfield land to build 1.2 million new homes on, a new study published by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) warns.
The thinktank claims that the only way more homes can be built in already-developed areas is if people are prepared to reduce the size of their gardens and local parks, which are currently defined as brownfield sites.
But researchers stress that it may be necessary to build around two million new homes outside existing town and city boundaries, on greenfield sites, if enough properties are to be built in order to meet rising demand for housing.
Warning that the UK faces "stark choices" over where new homes should be built, the SMF also claims that "common misconceptions" exist about the nature of the green belt. The thinktank reports that almost half of people think that it was established to preserve areas of natural beauty, when in fact it was created to prevent urban sprawl and even includes some former industrial sites and scrub land.
Calling for a "sensible debate" on the issue SMF director Ann Rossiter warned the UK faced "tough choices" in meeting its housing needs.
"Even if we built on all brownfield sites, including gardens and parks in our towns and cities, we would not be able to meet housing demand," she stressed.
"So we will need to build significant numbers of houses on greenfield and green belt sites."
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has agreed that the government needs to look at developing some parts of the green belt. Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme RIBA president elect Sunand Prasad said the green belt should not be used "simply to block development".
But the government has insisted that there will be no change to the "robust protections" ministers have proposed to preserve the green belt.
"We believe it is possible to build the homes future generations need whilst protecting the environment and green spaces," said housing and planning minister Baroness Andrews.
Nonetheless shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles claimed that the greenbelt was facing a "sustained assault from Labour's army of bulldozers and concrete mixers - with local communities powerless to resist Whitehall's Soviet-style targets".