Squeezing into our green and pleasant land

Nov 12 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

FOLLOWING previous columns dealing with the green belt, there now appears to be only one outcome the Government is considering: not so much tightening it as squeezing.

The green belt has become trapped between a rock and a hard place (and I’m not thinking of that place up by Wastwater in the Lakes). We have a small, densely- populated country that’s getting even more crowded. Society demands more personal space.

Because of worries about urban sprawl and the inevitable impingement of the modern world despoiling the countryside, green belts were introduced as part of the wide-reaching postwar planning legislation. While boosting the prices of many properties, green belts have been eyed by greedy developers ever since, wishing to benefit from the enhanced sale prices while eating into that which bestows it. As Oscar Wilde wrote, we always kill the thing we love.

Now, with pressure on land for building reaching unprecedented heights, green belts are regarded as awonderfully useful repository of land. The latest turn in the threat against this open space is the Government’s proposals to fast-track big infrastructure projects.

Rural and environmental campaigners are increasing their opposition claiming this amounts to no more than a “developers’ charter”. Even the National Trust is weighing in on behalf of the green belt.

The National Trust says it would fight further developments on the green belt and is considering buying threatened stretches of such land, which critics say infringes its non-political charter.

But we’re not only talking about small housing estates nibbling into the green belt on the edge of villages. This Planning Reform Bill will let an independent commission decide where nuclear plants, motorways and airports will be sited. Local communities and protestors will be largely ignored in the decision-making process. Even ministers will no longer have the final say in these huge decisions.

It all comes back to the latest government desire to build ever more homes, which has been going on for as long as I can remember (and much longer than that). The new legislation will permit homeowners and small businesses to erect extensions without planners say-so, allowing councils more time to rapidly process housing developments.

The Housing and Regeneration Bill, which has just been confirmed, will improve the creation of social and affordable housing, release public sector land for building and establish “eco-towns”.

These two bills will bolster Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s goal of constructing 240,000 houses each year and three million new homes by 2020. This is a very ambitious target.

What I don’t understand is, meantime, the seemingly contrary Pathfinder programme which will demolish tens of thousands of pre-WWI houses, including among many, Liverpool’s famous Welsh Streets. Most of these houses have stood for 100 to 150 years or more and only need refurbishment. We all know that the modern tat which is destined to replace them will, at most, have a lifespan of 50 years maximum. The Government says Pathfinder will stimulate the housing market in these urban areas, as doubtless it will.

These deserted, boarded-up streets are at such a low point that any activity would achieve that. Who is going to actually benefit from this squalid treatment of our 19th century suburbs and their residents, other than the demolition contractors and the house builders?

Back in the green belt row, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) warned it would attempt to block the proposed legislation and had a list of 24 Labour MPs who were similarly worried about an independent planning commission.

Unusually, it has joined forces on this issue with a pressure group called Planning Disaster, which says that the new laws will cut local communities out of permitting big developments that could damage the environment.

In contrast, the National Housing Federation said the building programme was “sorely needed”.

When discussing this issue, my 15-year-old-son told me, “But if people need homes, does it matter if all the land gets built over?”

Yes, but . . .

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk