Wednesday 15 July 2009

Garden grabbing, green belts and affordable housing - a sensitive subject!

As someone elected to represent five villages surrounded by a swathe of West Yorkshire's 'Green Belt' I should perhaps stay off the subjects of planning and housing! But since these issues are the 'big deal' when it comes to local voters it would be rather foolish not to comment!

Let's start with the options as people - or at least the vocal ones - tend to put them:

1. The BANANA policy. Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. This is the 'green party' position and says that the 'green belt' is too precious and too important for even the smallest change to the most insignificant wall to be permissible.

2. The NIMBY approach. Probably the most common and might be summarised as "...please Mr Planner, Sir build your houses in the village down the road not here." Obviously the NIMBY sets out lots of very good reasons where 'there' is better than 'here' - but that's the gist of the case for sure

3. The KOSCAG platform. Keep out scroats, chavs and gypsies. OK Mr Developer and Mr Planner, you can build some houses if you really insist. But they have to be 4-bed detached houses (with or without a moat) and ABSOLUTELY NO AFFORDABLE HOMES. We welcome Jaguars, BMWs and Mercedes (but not more than two years old - unless classics).

Now I have some sympathy for all of this but have concluded that we have to be more responsive if we are to prevent the planners - egged on by the worst of the mass housebuilders - simply building huge new housing estates on former farmland. I call this the triumph of the suburban farmer - the one who wants to grow houses rather than hay!

We need to review 'green belt' policies, the attitude to previously developed land in villages, definitions of employment land and the justifications for protecting gardens from development.

1. Green Belt policies - farm & other rural buildings. You know those semi-derelict farm buildings, mill buildings, store-houses and barns? The ones that planners say can't be developed for holiday lets, business units or light industry? We should let them be used and we should allow additional limited development within former farm sites.

2. Green Belt polices - land in villages. Many small villages and hamlets are 'washed over' by the 'green belt' making any development within them very difficult. We should identify sites and allow development where it does not extend the boundaries of these places and where the development is in keeping with a rural environment.

3. Previously developed land in villages. It drives me nuts when planners - and the occasional Parish Council - oppose housing development in order to protect "employment land" within rural villages. Haven't they noticed how employment has changed? And how this land lies unused because commerce and industry isn't interested in putting it to use? Build houses on it!

4. Stop obsessing about 'garden grabbing'. I'm all in favour of protecting good gardens, orchards and the general feel of a neighbourhood. But saying that big garden - not something most folk want these days - can never be developed for housing (sorry Eric) is stupid. We need policies that protect - within reason - fine houses (something the Church of England needs to learn) and their gardens but not a blanket "never allow building on a garden policy". (As an aside here, can we also relax the rules on horticulture in the 'green belt' to allow rural villages to provide much needed allotments.)

5. Facilitate Village Housing Trusts. Too often I hear complaints about social housing allocations forcing people out of the village - and they are wrong. Creating village housing trusts using public land can provide affordable housing for local people - with the allocations policy controlled locally by the trust or by a Parish Council.

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