Labour’s ‘Grey Belt’ plans – will they work in reality?

Back in May, DHA Planning’s Greg Filmer outlined Labour’s plans to get Britain ‘building again’, which included developing the ‘Grey Belt’.   At the time, the term referred to those areas that are neglected such as disused car parks and “poor quality wastelands” that are located within the Green Belt.

 

Fast forward two months, and with Labour now in power, significant changes to the planning system were unveiled in the King’s speech last week, including the focus of development on brownfield sites and poor-quality areas in the green belt i.e. the now so called ‘grey belt’.

 

Labour wants grey belt land to be used for new homes, with half to be affordable housing.      Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner has previously talked about grey belt land as “poor quality scrubland, mothballed on the outskirts of town”.  However, at present there is no definition of grey belt and calls are being made for a clear definition to prevent existing green belt land, which may be seen as being ‘run down’, ‘scrubby’ etc. being inadvertently designated as grey belt.

 

Without a definition, and with no official data, we don’t know how much grey belt land actually exists and how easy it will be to bring such sites forward.  Estimates by consultancy CBRE of the potential number of homes that could be built on grey belt sites go as high as a forecast of 3.8 million homes.    However, other studies are more conservative, stating around 1.5 million homes could be delivered.

 

A more detailed study of potential grey belt sites by property data firm LandTech, which took a more conservative approach, has suggested a maximum of 316,000 homes could be produced from 2,728 sites.   The study has suggested that the majority of the sites would come from three areas of green belt, including:

 

• The belt surrounding London – 94,636 homes;
• The belt surrounding Merseyside and Greater Manchester – 93,638; and
• The South and West Yorkshire green belt – Up to 47,288.

 

Whilst we eagerly await a definition for ‘grey belt’ land, it seems that in theory the new classification could help to unlock large swathes of land to significantly boost housebuilding.

 

And what about potential constraints?

 

According to sources, developers are raising concerns that a major constraint on grey belt development will be the mandatory biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirement, which currently favours greenfield sites.     Whilst ‘grey belt’ sites may not be the most beautiful of sites, they may have a high biodiversity value, and therefore the requirement to achieve a 10% BNG may scupper some developments.

 

Another concern is the government’s proposal that there would be a requirement of 50 per cent affordable housing within grey belt development, which could threaten development viability in some locations.   For example, outside the South East, where values are typically particularly high, site values are less likely to be able to support such a high proportion of affordable housing alongside the other policy requirements.

 

Notwithstanding these concerns, whilst it seems that in theory this new classification could help to unlock large swathes of land to significantly boost housebuilding, time will now tell whether the grey belt concept is intended as a real driver of housebuilding or not.