As part of the new Labour government’s plan to build 1.5 million homes by 2030, councils and public bodies in England will be given the power to compulsorily buy up cheap green belt land.
Landowners in green belt areas who do not wish to sell would face compulsory expropriation, which would force them to hand over their land if a “high-quality housing project” in the public interest could be built on the site.
Under the proposed rules currently under discussion, these landowners could be forced to sell at a benchmark price that the government says ensures a “fair but not excessive return” for the landowner and also “maximises benefit to the community”.
The proposals come two weeks after Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner unveiled sweeping reforms to planning and housing policy designed to speed up house building.
This included the introduction of new binding housing targets for municipalities, requiring authorities to allocate sufficient land in their local development plans to meet housing needs.
In some areas this would mean a significant increase in the number of new homes needed, such as in the north-west of England, where the target increased from 21,500 to just under 38,000 homes, and in the east of England, where the target increased from 35,000 to almost 45,000.
The changes also included asking councils to consider green belt land for development if needed to meet housing targets, with the government saying it wanted to take a “more strategic approach to designating (green belt) land”.
The Green Belt was introduced nationwide in 1947 as part of the Town and Country Planning Act to prevent urban sprawl and protect the outskirts of towns and cities from development. It covers 6,300 square miles, or about 13% of England’s area.
There are fears that landowners who owned greenbelt land that had no development value before the changes may now seek to capitalise on it.
To address this problem, ministers are proposing changes to compensation rules, first reported by The Times, which are designed to “eliminate inflated land values based on the prospect of planning permission” and ensure that projects in the public interest can go ahead.
If no agreement can be reached on the price, the government is considering giving local authorities and Homes England, the state’s housing agency, powers to “play an active role in the acquisition of the sites, supported where appropriate by the power of compulsory requisition”.
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Some experts in the planning and housing sector believe that the Labour Party can only achieve its target of building 1.5 million homes by 2030 if more homes are built on green belt land.
The government has acknowledged that the housing crisis cannot be solved by building on brownfield sites – land that was once built on but is now lying fallow – and that local authorities should therefore identify green belts that will help them meet their housing targets.
It states that brownfield and greybelt land such as wasteland or car parks would be given priority and that any development on greenbelt land would require 50 percent of the housing to be classified as affordable.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We will reform the outdated process of compulsory repossession to tackle inflated land values and ensure that compensation to landowners is fair but not excessive. This is part of our plan to get Britain building again and delivering the homes the country desperately needs.”
