Green belt rules are under threat if Labour wins General Election, says Theresa Villiers
For more than 70 years communities around England have been shielded by green belt rules which prevent residential development on open spaces at the edges of towns and cities.
All that is under threat if Labour were to win the General Election. Sir Keir Starmer wants to rip up green belt protections.
He proudly says he will “ignore” local views about what gets built, claiming that there is green belt land of poor ecological value which should go.
That is the wrong approach: “the countryside next door” (the term coined by the CPRE charity for the Green Belt) does contain many precious habitats.
We should be seeking to enhance their ecological value, not destroy it.
Secondly, the purpose of the green belt goes beyond the need to protect attractive landscapes. It also prevents urban sprawl and stops towns from merging.
Set out in Clement Attlee’s Town and Country Planning Act 1947, green belt rules marked the end of our capital’s relentless expansion.
Without them, the London conurbation might be as big now as Los Angeles – it could have become a dystopian mega-city, stretching out into rural areas.
Why allow Labour’s ecological vandalism when there are so many planning permissions granted but yet to be built?
Why sacrifice our precious green belt when there are urban brownfield sites such as Old Oak Common, Thamesmead, Silvertown and Beckton where hundreds of thousands of new homes could be built?
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It is these and sites in our great northern cities which the Government’s long-term plan rightly identifies as capable of playing a huge part in the uplift in homebuilding we have promised. Labour have nothing to offer first-time buyers.
They say they want to “back the builders” but when they had a chance to vote for the Government’s modest reforms on nutrient pollution to unblock the construction of 100,000 homes, Labour failed the test.
They blocked the reform and blocked the homes.
Conservatives are determined to build the right homes in the right places as well as protect the green belt, ensuring communities have a strong say in what is built.
Theresa Villiers is the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet.
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