It’s no secret that we are in the midst of a housing crisis.
As of 2021, England is 78,500 homes short of the government’s much advertised 300,000 homes a year goal – 74% of the target.
The South East, an area of high demand, continues to struggle with housing performance. Nearly a third of its local authorities are under 75% of their targets, facing the worst consequence of the Housing Delivery Test – presumption.
And high demand and low supply means that house prices continue to rise – they’ve risen 28% in the past five years.
Many solutions have been proposed and executed over the years to this crisis:
But there is one other thing that can help deliver the homes the country desperately needs – releasing land from the green belt.
Here’s our own Grace Manning-Marsh talking about it on the BBC:
This is, quite understandably, a controversial point. For many people, the term “green belt” is emotionally (or politically) loaded. It’s not just a land classification, but rather, an embodiment of England’s green and rolling fields.
But this isn’t what the green belt is. The green belt is allocated land to stop urban expansion.
Areas of the country that are known for their greenery, like Devon and Suffolk, they don’t have any designated green belt at all.
We presented some analysis at Housing 2021 which showed that if we released just one per cent of the green belt we could deliver a year’s worth of new housing (over 300,000 homes at a generous 41 dwellings per hectare).
There are various benefits if we release the green belt to deliver new homes:
We know this is a controversial point. In fact, it’s so controversial that when our own Matt Cawley and Callum Healy presented on the topic at Housing 2021, they were heckled.
(The heckler later apologised, as they had come in late, and didn’t have the full context. But, further proof that the green belt is an emotive topic).
However, it’s a subject worth exploring.
In the on-demand webinar version of the presentation you can hear Matt and Callum talk about:
Click the button below to view the presentation:
David is LandTech’s resident Data Journalist. He has a degree in Physics, but he went all in on the spreadsheets after giving up on his dream to be an astronaut. He once made £150 from an initial investment of £20 selling… apples.
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