Gray belt development is ‘a drop in the ocean’, government warns

The government has warned that homes built under plans to encourage gray belt development would be a “drop in the ocean” compared to the numbers needed to address the chronic housing shortage.

Debates over the definition of gray belt land (parts of green belt including wasteland and disused car parks) will also lead to “numerous lawsuits and delays”, it said.

Unlocking gray belt progressionDefined as land that makes a limited contribution to the main purposes of the green belt, It forms part of the government’s commitment to deliver 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

But an expert told the House of Lords’ built environment committee yesterday (October 28) that the policy may have little impact in practice and the developments could risk being dragged into lengthy legal disputes.

Paul Cheshire, retired professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics, said that without a very precise definition of the gray belt and a stronger presumption in favor of construction, there would be “no significant change” in the number of homes built. .

“Despite the current 50 per cent requirement for affordable homes, it will marginally provide some additional land, but this will only be a small drop in the ocean of housing supply shortage,” he said.

Cheshire added that from any perspective, the change would be positive, but far less positive than the political cost of making those changes.

He said the highly local nature of the planning system and the small number of local authorities with valid, up-to-date local plans made it difficult to channel wider interest into the decision-making process.

“So unless you have a very clear definition that says ‘this is the gray belt and there will be a presumption in favor of sustainable development when practices come to the fore in these types of areas’ I think this will change very little. “because it is very subjective and very open to local lobbying activities,” he added.

Without a clear definition, Cheshire said he anticipates gray belt development applications will be bogged down in legal battles.

“One of the unintended consequences of this as designed is that it leads to a lot of litigation and delays as people argue about whether it is actually gray belt land,” he said.

But Simon Ricketts, a partner at Town Legal, told the committee that fears of legal disputes over how the land is classified would be misplaced.

“People are always worried that these issues will turn into litigation,” he said. “It is not so, because the approach of the courts is very clear, that is, the words have common sense meanings.

“In cases of real uncertainty, it’s up to the decision makers to enforce the policy and it’s up to the courts to interpret the policy, and we’ve seen from cases dealing with very specific circumstances that the courts have really pushed back on people who are trying to over-engineer this.”

However, he said the introduction of gray belt as a designation could lead to a greater degree of “planning by appeal”.

“In a sense, the nature of what the government is proposing is that it’s a more centralized approach, a top-down approach that would require authorities to look more favorably on development in perhaps traditionally green belt areas,” Ricketts said.

“Many applicants will think that their site meets these criteria, the authorities and their constituents may have a different view and so appeal in many cases, and this will require Planning Inspectorate inspectors and the secretary to really decide the state’s stance on what ‘limited contribution’ means.” to begin.”