Treasury Chief Secretary, Liz Truss, conquered the weekend headlines when she suggested that the Conservative party should be breaking ground on the Green Belt. Truss told The Mail on Sunday that the Conservatives should build a million homes on the Green Belt, which she believes would allow the under 40s to own their own home.
Truss was quoted as saying: “We need to build a million homes on the London Green Belt near railway stations, and around other growing cities, specifically to allow the under 40s to be able to own their homes. We should allow villages to expand by four or five houses a year without having to go through the planning system, so people can afford to live locally.”
The National Federation of Builders (NFB) believes a more nuanced discussion about the greenbelt is required because, while it could support a million more new homes, we would be wasting chances to build on previously developed land and small sites within existing communities.
Many of the NFB’s members build rurally and on small sites, yet struggle to secure planning in their communities because, when sites are allocated on green spaces, they are typically for hundreds of homes and not the tens that they usually deliver.
Richard Beresford, chief executive of the NFB, said: “We need to reassess where the greenbelt starts and ends, as well as exploring ways to build on green sites within existing communities. This will help provide more new rural housing and employment and promote opportunities to reconnect people with nature.”
Rico Wojtulewicz, head of housing and planning policy at the House Builders Associations (HBA), added: “Our rural communities continue to shrink as young people leave and local people struggle to afford ever increasing house prices. To preserve it successfully, we encourage politicians to reimagine the greenbelt as a tool for prosperity, not a blunt instrument to resist change.”
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