The government has opened the door for housing associations that are constrained by a lack of brownfield sites in high demand areas to use greenfield land for social housing
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour party conference, junior housing and planning minister Tony McNulty said that in areas such as Oxford and Cambridge, where the government's target of 60% development on brownfield land is hard to meet, building on the greenbelt was an obvious solution. "If councils need to go that route, then [they should] go that route," said McNulty. "[The greenbelt] is not sacrosanct – if necessary it needs to be used. If we are lost on the lines of a map without a degree of flexibility, that is problematic."
Under current planning law, it is acceptable for developers to build on greenbelt land if all other avenues have been exhausted.
But the land is often protected by regional planners who feel under pressure to meet the 60% brownfield target while preventing excessive building on town outskirts.
Professor Kelvin McDonald of the Royal Town Planning Institute said: "We do think too much about protecting grass.
"But greenfield developments must be properly planned and not just sprawl."
Source
Housing Today
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