Is this the beginning of the end of the Green Belt

The Green Belt protection that was first pioneered in Sheffield in the 1930's is under attack like never before. Admired the world over, for amongst other things, improving people's lives is set to be dismantled by the government.

When New Labour came to power in 1997, they promised to respect green belts, but since then they have presided over a gradual weakening of controls on development.

The decision-making powers on big issues, like how many new houses are needed in a particular area, have been taken away from elected local councils and put in the hands of non-accountable regional assemblies who report directly to Whitehall.

Local council planners, who previously had the power to limit the scale of development in sensitive areas, are now told they must take a certain development allocation whether they like it or not – and this has greatly increased pressure to release green belt land.

Planners have been encouraged to view green belt protection as negotiable, and official figures show that between 1997 and 2004, 162 planning applications for development in green belts went unchallenged by the Government. In the last year for which figures are available, 148 acres of green belt land were lost in the Yorkshire region alone including areas around the Peak district National Park.

A report commissioned by Gordon Brown recommends 13 per cent of green belt land in England should be "reviewed" to allow for urban expansion.

In a complete reversal of the green belt principles cities will spread outwards and development within the cities will cease. Strange when you look at a city like Sheffield that has been transformed through inner city renaissance.

But of course pulling down old buildings and cleaning up contaminated land is expensive – it's far cheaper just to bulldoze green fields and start from scratch. So the moment the rules are relaxed, developers will snap up prime land on the outskirts of towns and cities, and remaining open spaces will be turned in to yet more housing estates, supermarkets and retail parks.

Local authorities are under enormous pressure to allow more housing to be built because the Government say they are needed. The Government will say they support green belts – that's easy to do, but it's how protection is interpreted at a local level that really counts and at that point the government loses interest.

New labour view the current planning laws as having no place in the fast-moving, modern world: Green Belts have served their purpose, but for house builders and developers they have become a bit of a nuisance.

But now, with more than 13 per cent of our small, crowded country already developed, we need green spaces more than ever. You cannot put a value on open fields, trees and unpolluted air – yet these are the things many people prize most about their local environment.

As the Government prepares to publish a new White Paper setting out its planning policies for the future, one of the main pillars of the post-war planning system is beginning to look in trouble.

We've had the cash for honours scandal will it now be cash for development land?

Chris Sabian, Peak District View - 2007-03-06 11:32:19