Andy Burnham challenged not to bulldoze green belt | Politics | News
Britain faces a housing crisis and there are fears the green belt could be vulnerable (Image: James Manning/PA Wire)
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been challenged to rule out further building on the green belt amid warnings that people who today live in homes looking on fields could soon be surrounded by new properties. Labour is under intense pressure to deliver 1.5million new homes in England by 2029 and comments made by Mr Burnham when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester have heightened fears that treasured open spaces will become construction sites.
There is alarm that Mr Burnham said it was not possible to protect all of the green belt because Government targets meant “houses have to go somewhere”. In a question and answer event in 2019, he said that building the number of homes required “without taking any green belt” is not “going to be possible”. This recording has fuelled concern that yet more of the nation’s “green lungs” will be filled with concrete on Labour’s watch.
Shadow Housing Secretary Sir James Cleverly told the Sunday Express that when it came to building on the green belt, Mr Burnham must “rule it out” now that “Labour has now handed him the countryside of every county in England”.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycock has said that in “exceptional circumstances” green belt land “should be developed on”. Under newly unveiled planning changes there will be default approval for homes built within “reasonable walking distance of well-connected stations”. The National Planning Policy Framework, launched on Monday, states that “new green belts should be established only in exceptional circumstances”.
Shortly after arriving in power in 2024, then-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said that “large areas of the green belt have little ecological value and are inaccessible to the public” – claiming such land is really the “grey belt” with “little aesthetic or environmental value”. Mr Burnham has brought her back into the cabinet as Housing Secretary and campaigners are urging the Government not to wreck habitats and farmland.
Andy Burnham, when Mayor of Greater Manchester, could not rule out building on the green belt (Image: -)
Anais Pedron of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England insisted that the housing crisis could be tackled through building on previously used land.
She said: “[Our] research has shown that there are enough brownfield sites in England alone for more than 1.4 million new homes. Building them would quickly address the housing crisis while minimising urban sprawl and preventing the loss of yet more countryside.”
Defending the importance of the green belt, which is designed to prevent urban sprawl, she said: “The green belt serves as the countryside for nearly 30 million people in this country. In addition to containing some of the country’s best-quality farmland and essential wildlife habitats, these areas surrounding our largest towns and cities play a crucial role in helping the government achieve its target of protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030.”
Andy Smith of the London Green Belt Council – which fights to protect “486,000 hectares” of green space around the capital, including “large areas of Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire” – said the “bogus concept” of the grey belt was “just an excuse to bring in the builders”.
He said: “The green belt is incredibly important to millions of people. It is the local countryside and ‘green lung’ for people in towns and cities. It’s vital for their health and wellbeing, for nature conservation, for farming and food. For over 80 years the green belt has stopped urban sprawl and has kept towns from merging into one another and spilling over into the countryside. Unfortunately, the green belt is now under threat. It’s in danger from developers who want to concrete over it and from politicians who misunderstand what it’s about.”
Shadow housing minister Gareth Bacon warned: “Families who saved for years to live at the edge of a town, with fields behind the house, are about to discover what a Labour government means. Conservatives would build on the derelict brownfield land already sitting empty in our cities, restore the protections Labour has stripped out of the planning framework, and stop Labour dictating to villages how many houses they must accept.”
David Simmonds, a fellow shadow housing minister, added: “Labour are failing abysmally to meet their 1.5 million homes target and because of their tax hikes, their failure to cut red tape and the bloated bureaucracy of Labour mayors like Sadiq Khan, Britain is not getting the new homes it needs. To try to fix their own mess, Labour’s planning power grab is exposing our green belt and countryside to development, rather than prioritising brownfield sites in cities.”
Sir James Cleverly has challenged Andy Burnham to rule out building on the green belt (Image: PA)
The Local Government Association has warned that the introduction of a “‘default yes’ for new development around train stations at nationally set density standards” could “come at the expense of environmental protections, local democratic accountability and local decision-making”.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “We’re building the homes the country needs while ensuring green belt land is strongly safeguarded. In the limited cases where development is allowed on this land, it must deliver more affordable housing, better infrastructure and new or improved green spaces to make sure local people benefit.”
Back in 2019, when Mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham was asked about planning policy in a public question and answer session.
He said he supported a “brownfield preference policy” and said “agricultural land” should “enjoy a higher level of protection”. But he added that “sometimes, in the end, the houses have to go somewhere”.
He added: “None of us enjoy this process. It’s a difficult, difficult process and, I’m just being honest with you, to build that level of houses that we’re being in many ways pressurised to do by the Government without taking any green belt, well, I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible.”
