Grey belt proposals labelled ‘redundant’ by House of Lords

A House of Lords committee has delivered a withering assessment of Labour’s ‘grey belt’ policy, saying it’s impact will at best be ‘marginal’.

Under changes introduced by Labour shortly after the election, lower quality green belt land will be designated “grey belt”.

However Conservative Lord Daniel Moylan, who is chairman of the Lords Built Environment Committee, told deputy prime minister Angela Rayner that changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and other parts of planning policy were “likely to mean that the impact is, at best, marginal”.

The Peers initially felt the policy could make a positive contribution to meeting housing targets.

However, Moylan and co have come to the conclusion that it’s being “implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner”.

Meanwhile changes to the NPPF “have now made the concept of grey belt land largely redundant as land will now more likely be released from the green belt through existing channels instead”.

Those changes include a new requirement for councils to review green belt boundaries and propose changes if they cannot meet demand for housing or commercial land through other means.

The committee said it was “difficult to see what the grey belt regime will add in terms of the ability to build on the green belt in light of this requirement”.

Peers also questioned how the government would track the effectiveness of its grey belt policy amid uncertainty about the number of homes that could be built on such land.

Estimates range from 50,000 to four million, which the committee said “suggests that the potential impact of the policy had not been adequately assessed before it was announced”.

The committee went on to raise concerns about the impact of even a reduced affordable housing requirement on the ability of smaller construction firms to take on grey belt sites, and suggested local planning departments still lacked the resources to deal with the many changes to planning policy brought in by the government.

While the peers welcomed the £46 million announced at the Budget to boost planning capacity, they said they were “concerned that the recruitment target of 300 additional planners is insufficient and unlikely to have any meaningful impact”.

Fergus Charlton, planning partner at national law firm Michelmores LLP, said: “Whether or not the grey belt policies will play an effective role in achieving the government’s difficult to reach 1.5 million new homes target will become clearer as the policies begin to play a defining role in plan making.

“In the realm of decision taking they are already playing a key role in the outcome of appeals where green belt land is considered by inspectors to be grey belt. We have seen more than a handful of successful appeals in the eight weeks since the grey belt concept was confirmed in the NPPF.”

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