Homes would need to be built on green land to meet housing target

If the UK is to meet the government’s housing target of 3 million new homes by 2020, it will have to build 1.8 million new houses on greenfield sites or the Green Belt, argues the first report from the SMF’s Internal Commission, Should the green belt be preserved?

The report outlines the preliminary findings of the Commission, concluding that the 3 million target is the minimum need to ease the UK’s overstretched housing market.

The first report from the Commission highlights the stark choices the UK faces over where to build the new homes. On current plans, brownfield land could only accommodate 1.2 million new homes. More could be built, but only if people living in towns and cities were prepared to sacrifice the size of their gardens and parks, both of which are included in the definition of brownfield sites.

The report therefore concludes that around 2 million homes will need to be built outside of existing town and city boundaries. The choice is between building these on greenfield (undeveloped) sites or the Green Belt.

The report highlights common misconceptions about the Green Belt, with 46% believing it is to preserve areas of natural beauty when it was established to prevent urban sprawl and contains scrub land and some ex-industrial land, as well as green sites. Given that the Green Belt isn’t as green as people believe, the report argues it is time to have a debate about loosening green belt boundaries.

Commenting, Director of the Social Market Foundation, Ann Rossiter said: “The UK faces tough choices in meeting its housing needs. Even if we built on all brownfield sites, including gardens and parks in our towns and cities, we would not be able to meet housing demand. So we will need to build significant numbers of houses on greenfield and Green Belt sites. There is no easy answer and wherever we build new houses involves trade offs. It is time for a sensible debate about how best to make these trade offs.”