Councils are to be given the power to compulsorily and cheaply buy up green belt land under plans by ministers to fulfil their pledge to build 1.5 million new homes by 2030.
In an effort to prevent landowners from cashing in on sites that would previously have been ineligible for development, the government is preparing to cap the amount of profit that they can make from the sale of their land.
Those that refuse to sell in parts of the country where there is the greatest housing need could find their land bought off them at a “benchmark” value that would be lower than the market value of similar sites outside of the green belt.
The move comes as experts warned that in order to achieve its housing target Labour would have to build not just on the so-called “grey belt” land around London but also on greenfield sites that have not previously been developed.
Campaign groups are likely to fiercely oppose the plans, but planning experts said it was the only way that some councils would be able to meet their new housing targets. England’s protected green belt covers more than 6,300 square miles, roughly 13 per cent of the country’s land area.
Green belts were implemented to prevent towns and cities from spreading into each other, but already include some developments. Labour says it includes significant “grey belt”, or “low quality”, land that has little utility and could be built on.
Ministers are currently consulting on plans to re-write the rules of the National Planning Policy Framework that would force councils to identify enough land in local plans to meet their future housing needs. The government has also said that when green belt land is built on, 50 per cent of the new homes should be affordable and have access to essential infrastructure.
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But there are concerns that in areas of high property prices — particularly around London and the South East — this could allow landowners to cash in on sites that had no prior development value.
In an effort to address this, ministers are consulting on plans to set a low “benchmark” value for the land, that could cap the amount that landowners could receive. If they fail to agree to the price, ministers say they are considering how local authorities and Homes England could “take a proactive role in the assembly of the land supported where necessary by compulsory purchase powers”.
It adds that in such cases, the use of compulsory purchase powers could also include the “use of directions to secure ‘no hope (of development) value’ compensation where appropriate and justified in the public interest”.
Government sources said this would allow land to be bought, giving “fair” compensation to the owner rather than inflated prices which are linked to the prospect of planning permission in the future.
They added that local authorities next to each other would be encouraged to plan future developments together that would “limit unnecessary green belt release”, by allowing them to aggregate their housing needs rather than meet individual targets alone.
Under the government’s new formula for assessing future housing needs, many areas around London are likely to find themselves in a situation where the number of new homes they need to build every year more than doubles.
Sevenoaks, for example, currently builds around 263 new homes a year, a number which will need to increase by 324 per cent to meet its new housing target. Windsor and Maidenhead on average builds 303 homes a year — a figure that will increase to 1,341.
While ministers have said that they expect councils and developers to prioritise brownfield developments and “grey belt” land in the green belt, planning experts believe the government definitions are vague. This, they say, will allow greenfield sites to be developed.
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Matthew Spry, a senior director at the planning consultancy Lichfields, said many local authorities would struggle with their new targets without building on greenfield land in the green belt.
“When you look at how many houses are actually being built in council areas around London, and then look at how much the government wants to increase this by, then you quickly see that you’re not going to be able to do this without very significant new development in the green belt, and quickly,” he said. “The increase in homebuilding will need to be up to 30,000 homes a year in the South East alone — that is 150,000 in this parliament.”
He added: “Ministers have successfully used ‘grey belt’ to change the debate around green belt development but the reality is that in order to meet the targets this will require building on land that many will regard as greenfield, not just the areas of brownfield land in the green belt that has been commonly talked about.”
In a sign of what is likely to become a battle between landowners, developers and the government, one senior industry source claimed that attempting to set the price of green belt land below the market value of land outside it could backfire.
“The critical thing for the government is to identify land with willing sellers quickly,” they said. “If they are capping the money that they will be paid then many landowners will sit on their hands and refuse to sell in the hope that the policy changes in the future.
“Ministers can threaten them with compulsory purchase orders but these are bureaucratic and time-consuming and will do nothing to increase land supply within the period which the government wants to start building.
“They should just identify the amount of affordable housing that they want and then leave it up to the market.”
Lizzie Bundred Woodward, a planning policy manager at the countryside charity CPRE, said the charity was also concerned that some landowners of green belts could deliberately degrade their sites to make them eligible for development.
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“We have got concerns about the wording and that so-called grey belt could ultimately end up including greenfield land,” she said.
“There is also a danger that landowners deliberately run down their land so it becomes eligible to build on.”
She added that the organisation was worried that insufficient consideration has been given to how ambitions for new affordable homes on grey belt land will be achieved.
“We know there is enough brownfield land to build 1.2 million homes and it is critical that this is prioritised, alongside robust targets for new affordable and social rented homes.”
A ministry of housing, communities and local government representative said: “We will reform the outdated compulsory purchase process to remove inflated values of land and ensure compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive.
“We will preserve the green belt and take a brownfield-first approach in doing so, so sites which people are desperate to see used will be developed first. We will also use lower quality ‘grey belt’ land, like wasteland or old car parks, and introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure that development benefits both communities and nature.”
