The thin end of the green wedge may be all there is

Oct 15 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

THOSE of you old enough to remember Mrs Thatcher’s former Environment Minister, Nicholas Ridley, may recall his remark, over some scrape with the Germans, I think, that he had no intention of resigning to spend more time with his family.

Quite a clever rejoinder when ministers regularly seemed to resign to get out of hot water, by citing their desire “to spend more time with their families”. Presumably it was irrelevant if their families wanted to see more of them or not.

Less clever was the late Mr Ridley’s deep devotion to free market economics which drove him to loosen planning laws so out-of-town retail parks could be developed on the edges of all our cities and towns. This has led to a monolithic visual blight of World of Leather, Halfords and all the other usual suspects along the major corridors into conurbations.

However, his activities could pale into insignificance after a review was given the go-ahead that could end the green belt’s role as buffer zone between town and countryside. Bizarrely, the review was called for by the Government’s conservation advising quango, Natural England, which decided to help find where 3m extra homes can be built.

As has been referred to in this column previously, there was a move by Gordon Brown’s advisor on housing, Kate Barker, who suggested that green belt could be sacrificed. But this is worse, as it is not Natural England’s role to find the answer to the housing crisis; it is there to defend the countryside’s existence, which is under huge and remorseless pressure for development.

This proposed government review could mean that parts of the green belt are given over to solving the shortage of housing. The green belt accounts for about 13% of land in England, and is centred around 14 major towns and cities. It is bigger than all of our National Parks combined.

Instead of green belts, says Natural England, a network of green “wedges”, “gaps” and “buffers” could be created to link urban areas to the countryside. In other words, more strip development could be allowed to reach out into the countryside. This would be even more intrusive than that allowed in the 1930s which caused so much blight and derision, leading to the far more stringent regulations of the postwar town and country planning acts.

Britain’s green belt policy, along with National Parks, is regarded throughout Europe as one of the most highly successful pieces of planning legislation.

At least the Campaign to Protect Rural England is not taking the proposals lying down, which it says risked “unleashing an American-style swathe of car-dependent sprawl that would change the face of the country, undermining the clear separation between town and country and efforts to secure urban renewal.”

Surely it’s Natural England’s job to examine the impact of 3m homes and the environmental pressures they would let loose? Instead, they appear to be government poodles, colluding with the forces to undermine the green belt.

All this contrasts with the hands-on ethos of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which is taking over Wallasea Island, off the Essex coast.

In a £12m project, the island will be reconfigured into its original island group to provide an ideal habitat for the birds of the Thames estuary.

It was a wildlife haven until 500 years ago when moves began to reclaim it for farming, resulting in the loss of its saltmarshes and wildlife.

RSPB project manager Mark Dixon said: “We will have a landscape of marshes, islands and lagoons. Wallasea is one island now, but was once five separate pieces of land. We will restore these ancient divisions and each new island will have its own tidal control. Many birds will starve if we don't restore Wallasea. Fish are under incredible pressure, too, not just because of over-fishing but because of the loss of their saltmarsh nurseries as well.”

Here is a case we must applaud of not mere countryside returning, but a wilderness coming back into being, to provide a safe haven for nature in perpetuity. That is, unless they discover oil or natural gas underneath it, of course.

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk