The House of Lords built environment committee has concluded an inquiry into the grey belt policy and has today written to the deputy prime minister. They tell her that the policy is unlikely to make any significant difference to the number of new homes that can be built.
The government’s grey belt policy, announced in July 2024 in its draft revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), is supposed to free up lower quality green belt land to expand rural settlements and unlock sites on the boundaries of existing communities.
According to the Lords, the policy has not been properly thought through and clashes with other planning reforms.
By making grey belt land a distinct category and highlighting that this is land that makes a limited contribution to the original green belt principles, it might have been possible to mitigate local opposition to such development.
However, in December – three months after the Lords began their inquiry into the grey belt policy – the government published the final NPPF, including a requirement for local authorities to review green belt boundaries and propose alterations if they are not able to satisfy their identified need for homes, commercial or other development through other means. These changes, coupled with other ongoing policy developments, are likely to render the concept of grey belt land largely redundant, the Lords report says.
Even before the final NPPF was published, there was significant uncertainty about how many dwellings could actually be built on grey belt land: estimates ranged from as low as 50,000, to as high as four million. This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that the government does not have a clear plan to track the progress and assess the effectiveness of its new policies, the Lords report says.
“The government appears to lack a sufficient understanding of the implications of introducing multiple intersecting planning policies at the same time, and this compromises its ability to deliver any of its policies in a coherent way,” it says.
Lord Moylan, chair of the built environment committee, said: “Last autumn our committee launched this inquiry into ‘grey belt land’ because the committee believed that this new category could make a positive contribution to meeting housing targets.
“The government’s policy been implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner. The committee does not believe that it is likely to have any significant or lasting impact on planning decision-making or helping the government achieve its target of building 1.5 million new homes by the end of this parliament.
“In December the government published the final NPPF and the revisions it has made to the framework have now made the concept of grey belt land largely redundant as land will now be more likely to be released from the green belt through existing channels instead.
“The government also does not seem to have any plan to measure progress or determine the success of this policy. Effective policy must be evidence based and be able to demonstrate its efficacy. Sadly, this is not the case here.”
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