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Please select a letter above and a term on the left.
What is the Green Belt?
Green Belt is protected from development and is designated around certain cities and large built up areas. It has the following aims:
- To check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas
- To prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another
- To assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment
- To preserve the setting and special character of historic towns
- To assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land
Interesting statistics from the Institute of Economic Affairs
- The size of the Green Belt has more than doubled since 1979 - its total size growing from 721,500 hectares to 1,634,700 hectares
- This amounts to roughly 13 per cent of the land area of England, and covers one and a half times as much land as our towns and cities put together
- The designation of Green Belt land is not attributed based on environmental quality; rather, it effectively represents a form of 'discriminatory zoning', keeping people living in urban areas away from the Home Counties
- There is enough Green Belt land within the confines of Greater London - 32,500 hectares - to build 1.6 million average-size houses. Using a tenth of that land for building could produce 160,000 new homes - a significant response to the current under-supply of housing
