Grey belt policy ‘unlikely to have significant impact’ on housebuilding, Lords committee finds

The government’s plan to introduce a new ‘grey belt’ category of land within the green belt is unlikely to have a significant impact on housebuilding, an influential committee has found.

The House of Lords Built Environment committee has concluded its inquiry into the government policy, which was envisaged as a way for local planning authorities to overcome opposition to development of green belt land with limited environmental value.

However, following a five-month inquiry, the committee has concluded the policy itself is now likely to make little direct difference.

Committee chair Lord Moylan, in a letter to housing secretary Angela Rayner, said: “Our assessment is that the grey belt policy has been implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner, and we do not believe that it is likely to have any significant or lasting impact on planning decision-making or on achieving your target of 1.5 million new homes by the end of this parliament.”

The committee said it originally saw potential in the grey belt policy to expand rural settlements and unlock sites on the boundaries of existing communities.

It said that by making grey belt land a distinct category and highlighting that it is land that makes a limited contribution to the original green belt principles, it might have been possible to mitigate local opposition to development.

However, in December, the final National Planning Policy Framework was published, including a requirement for councils to review green belt boundaries and propose alterations if they are not able to satisfy their identified needs for homes through other means.

Lord Moylan wrote: “We suspect that the concept of grey belt land may now be largely redundant and that it has been eclipsed by more significant changes to other aspects of the NPPF, which will be likely to see land released from the green belt through existing channels instead”. He said the most likely effect of the finalised grey belt policy “if any” will be to “nudge councils and developers towards using the existing recognised processes to allow slightly more development in the green belt”.

He added: “A policy that once had the potential to be innovative and unique is now, at best, relegated to the margins.”

Lord Moylan also said the committee was not satisfied that “the government has a sufficient understanding of the implications raised when introducing concurrent intersecting planning policies, risking its ability to deliver them in a coherent way.”

>>See also: The 1.5 million-home question: Does the government’s planning reform programme add up?

The committee was also critical of the government’s monitoring of performance against its housing and planning policies, citing housing minister Matthew Pennycook, who told the committee government has no specified annual target for progress towards its 1.5 million homes goal

Lord Moylan said: “We see no evidence that the government has a clear plan to track the progress and assess the effectiveness of its new policies.

“We appreciate the difficulty of determining a precise trajectory for reaching targets of this nature, but the proposed approach does not support the measurement or tracking of progress – either in terms of the government’s housing target, or in terms of evaluating the successes or failures of new or existing planning policies.”

The committee also found:

• Grey belt sites have the potential to support SME housebuilders as the smaller size of some grey belt sites would be less economically attractive to larger builders. However, the affordable housing requirement makes it financially difficult for smaller firms
• Local authority planning departments will lack sufficient resourcing and expertise to be able to deliver change at the pace demanded of them
• The introduction of the concept of grey belt land could have the undesirable effect of encouraging ad hoc and speculative applications for development on land within the green belt 

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: ”Our green belt reforms are informed through widespread consultation and will unlock more land for the homes and infrastructure communities desperately need, delivering sustainable, affordable and well-designed developments on low quality grey belt.”