Green Belt - what's it good for?

ukcarper

princeofpounds wrote: »

Interesting how this has immediately gone over to a housing vs. greenbelt debate, when really I meant it to be a greenbelt vs. something debate.



If you read my initial post, you'll realise that actually the green belt is pretty hopeless at providing biodiversity. Most of it is paddock land monoculture, which is just grass mown short by horses and the odd cow. The hedgerows have a bit of value, but that's about it.



I live in the middle of it. It's a bit of a fiction, as I said unless you are into driving or horse riding. It's mostly private fields that you cannot access. Most people looking for the countryside either go to one of the commons/heaths/woods, or zoom on past to the hills beyond. At weekends certain routes on the greenbelt just become trunk roads for people passing through.

There are plenty of footpaths crossing those fields but I agree most of it does little to aid biodiversity although in Surrey there are several areas off woodland and commons that are good for biodiversity. I'm sure there would be scope to reduce the size of greenbelt while at the same time improving access and biodiversity, but I'm not sure the present owners of the paddocks etc would be eager to give them up.

kwmlondon

princeofpounds wrote: »

Interesting how this has immediately gone over to a housing vs. greenbelt debate, when really I meant it to be a greenbelt vs. something debate.

If you read my initial post, you'll realise that actually the green belt is pretty hopeless at providing biodiversity. Most of it is paddock land monoculture, which is just grass mown short by horses and the odd cow. The hedgerows have a bit of value, but that's about it.
.

Er, I kind of agreed with you, I thought. I was just going on a bit of a meander about how we COULD consider building on greenbelt land. Sorry if I annoyed you - not my intention.

I have read a lot about how brownfield sites are actually more biodiverse than a lot of greenbelt land as they are completely uncultivated, rather than the agriculture monoculture that spans a lot of what we think of as the countryside.

There are hardly any meadows any more, and this is a real problem for us in environmental terms.

wymondham

green trousers?

princeofpounds

I'm not sure the present owners of the paddocks etc would be eager to give them up.

The government basically controls the use of this land anyway - it wouldn't be paddocks, I can assure you, if government stepped back.

So the term 'owners' is a pretty stretched one in reality due to greenbelt and other legislation.

Not much to stop compulsory purchases at terms that are exceptionally generous for agricultural land but way below the 'true' value of land. Or Dutch auctions, as was suggested above.

It would be an interesting project, to actually turn a huge swathe of greenbelt into green land people actually get to use.

princeofpounds

Sorry if I annoyed you - not my intention

No you didn't annoy me, I don't think I got the angle of your post right in that case. Kind of you to apologise though, it wasn't necessary if it was my mistake!

ermine

princeofpounds wrote: »

Surely the green belt largely just acts as a 'NIMBY reserve' for rich commuters' housing?[...]
I'd love to hear people's views on the subject. Personally I think the point about the use of commons is really important. The idea that the green belt itself provides accessible countryside is pretty much a fantasy, but I'd be a big supporter of creating more common spaces which can actually be used by the public.

Sometimes it's good to look at the counterfactual

Ever been to the commuting hell-hole that is Los Angeles?

Fifteen miles across, no explicit centre to the rush hour traffic pattern is like three housrs of random noise at the beginning and end of the day, you can see the smog every day looking from the observatory and you can feel it in your lungs.

You may not be able to walk on the green stuff, but it's still working for you. And I'm one of the proles squeezed out of the city I was born in more than 25 years ago by house prices so I get that argument. Being able to buy a house but lose 10 years of like due to diesel smog is a tough deal.

China has some interesting smog problems in big cities too. I know James Lovelock says that it's easier to abandon Nature and build hermetically sealed cities to keep the smog and heat out but I don't quite fancy that sort of SF vision...

the_flying_pig

one thing is certainly golf?

ukcarper

princeofpounds wrote: »

The government basically controls the use of this land anyway - it wouldn't be paddocks, I can assure you, if government stepped back.

So the term 'owners' is a pretty stretched one in reality due to greenbelt and other legislation.

Not much to stop compulsory purchases at terms that are exceptionally generous for agricultural land but way below the 'true' value of land. Or Dutch auctions, as was suggested above.

It would be an interesting project, to actually turn a huge swathe of greenbelt into green land people actually get to use.

It's difficult to put a monetary value on common/parkland I'm sure if planning restrictions were lifted plenty of the paddocks would be sold for housing but I think the premium wouldn't be high enough if it were to be converted to common land and I'm not sure compulsory purchase would go down that well.

princeofpounds

you can see the smog every day looking from the observatory and you can feel it in your lungs.

But comparing Los Angeles is totally fallacious for two really important reasons

1) The climate is totally different. The topography and climate is almost perfectly designed to trap pollution in the city.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2011/09/behind-pollution-californias-central-valley/207/

2) The usage of cars is far greater than in London. This is nothing to do with green belt - the average distance for London commuters is probably even further given all those that come in from satellite towns - and all to do with the lack of a suitable public transport alternative.

6% of LA residents commute to work on public transport.(US census 2009)

Only about 15% of rush hour peak travellers in London travel by car (eyeballed from TFL Key Transport Trends report 2009).

THAT is the huge difference.

I think the scientific literature is actually quite split on the benefits that green belts provide to air quality. I need to look into it a bit more, but I think that it basically does nothing for gaseous pollution, although trees might help reduce particulates a little. But most of the green belt isn't trees - if that is the objective then why not have more forest around the city rather than pony ranches?

China has some interesting smog problems in big cities too.

I've been there, experienced it. It's really nothing to do with green belts. Some of the worst polluted areas are actually the plains outside of the cities where the industry is sited. It's bad even in small cities, where green land is close than it is anywhere in the central of London .

It's mainly a combination of cheap, outdated technology for industrial processes and transport, the type of industry they have there (the whole world having basically exported their pollutive activities there), little regulatory control for reasons of economic competitiveness, and like california the climate/topography.

chucky

princeofpounds wrote: »

Provocative title perhaps... I'm aware that green belt has the benefit of making sure there is green space around our cities. I live in a green belt, I like it.

The green belt is fine where and how it is. If anything changes with it we will regret it and so will our children.