Since March 2016, a rise of 54% has been seen on homes due to be built on the green belt, with a total of 425,000.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) have exposed in a study of local authority that, over 70% of the homes are unaffordable to the people who need them.
Over the past 20 years, the 54% rise in the largest year-on-year upsurge in buildings proposed in the green belt.
Below are the stats on the proposed dwelling for green belt:
- 98,000 planned for the North-West,
- 73,000 planned for the West Midlands,
- 71,000 planned for around London and the South-East.
It was alerted by the CPRE that the development of green belt land that ministers promised to protect is being generously rewarded by the government funds, that ministers had pledged to protect without supplying the affordable homes the money was intended for.
It declared the New Homes Bonus initiative would be rewarding councils with £2.4 billion for the proposed 425,000 new homes.
The director of campaigns and policy at CPRE, Tom Fyans, had the following to say:
“Green belt is being lost at an ever faster rate, yet the type of housing being built now or in the future will do very little to address the affordable housing crisis faced by many families and young people.
We must not be the generation that sells off our precious green belt in the mistaken belief it will help improve the affordability of housing.
The only ones set to benefit from future green belt development will be landowners and the big house builders, not communities in need of decent, affordable housing.”
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