Green Belt - what's it good for?

CLAPTON

chucky wrote: »

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

oh dear

no new or expanded roads
no new or expanded railways
no new or expanded airports

no fracking
no new windfarms
no new power lines


etc
etc

chucky

CLAPTON wrote: »

oh dear

no new or expanded roads
no new or expanded railways
no new or expanded airports

no fracking
no new windfarms
no new power lines


etc
etc

No Clapton with any more sermons.
May god bless his soul.
He was a righteous visionary.
Etc
Etc
Etc

princeofpounds

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

Ok, that's an assertion. What's the argument?

No-one is crying these days about the loss of Lavender Hill as Clapham changed from a rural village to a suburb. Same goes for Wimbledon, Highgate, Dulwich.

What makes it totally right to preserve the specific 1947 boundaries of London? We don't miss the 1847 boundaries particularly.

And I'll repeat again, I'm not advocating building on the green belt necessarily. What I am doing is criticising what the green belt basically is; a fairly inauthentic museum replica of what countryside might look like, best enjoyed from inside the bubble of your SUV.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

princeofpounds wrote: »

However, when I got thinking about it, I started to wonder whether it's actually really the most intelligent way to be preserving and using green space..

It's clearly a monumental planning mistake to create a green [STRIKE]belt[/STRIKE] noose around cities, as this just creates havoc with future needs.

Various adaptations of the outline Copenhagen '5 finger Scheme' are a good example of a better way, with the fingers allowing effectively unlimited outward growth while preserving large arteries of green space extending almost all the way into the city centre.....



The following article illustrates some options for these types of outcomes, where large scale but well-structured outward 'ribbon development' makes a lot more sense than a 'green noose'....

In a real 'Green Finger Plan' the fingers themselves would be green, as on the right-hand diagram.

Here are some suggestions for how it could have worked:

-build the railways with earth embankments as environmental noise barriers – probably with space for an express roadway in the same corridor

-use the fingers as green infrastructure corridors for the urbanisation, growing the fingers as the urbanisation spreads

-also use the fingers as utility corridors for: cycleways, habitat space, recreation space, a city forest, urban water runoff management, urban agriculture etc

-extend ‘ribs’ of cycleway from rail stations into the urban areas between the green fingers

-consider building above the railways and roads at some future date, to accommodate shops, offices and other commercial use

http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2011/10/13/did-they-make-a-mistake-with-copenhagens-green-finger-landscape-plan/

chucky

princeofpounds wrote: »

Ok, that's an assertion. What's the argument?

No-one is crying these days about the loss of Lavender Hill as Clapham changed from a rural village to a suburb. Same goes for Wimbledon, Highgate, Dulwich.

What makes it totally right to preserve the specific 1947 boundaries of London? We don't miss the 1847 boundaries particularly.

And I'll repeat again, I'm not advocating building on the green belt necessarily. What I am doing is criticising what the green belt basically is; a fairly inauthentic museum replica of what countryside might look like, best enjoyed from inside the bubble of your SUV.

With our continual growth we are destroying and have been destroying the habitat.

You may call that evolution.

Doozergirl

There isn't 'a' greenbelt, there is essentially one green belt. Most of our land is greenbelt, so it isn't all paddocks with no public footpaths, it forms the majority of UK land. Move greenbelt borders, you only move the paddock owners (you still need planning permission for those, you can't just set one up)

It's so contentious because it's hugely profitable for large developers to buy swathes of pasture land and turn into into developments of 500+ houses, not only through land value increase, but the cost of developing a clean sheet is so much lower and there is less intricate planning.

They refuse to develop smaller brownfield sites and put pressure on local authorities to make green field available. There is still huge potential for brownfield development, even in London. When we lived in London, it would take hours to reach greenbelt and see the countryside. As a kid, I just didn't see it. The closest, which is nowhere near, was one of the commons.

Policy should be strictly brownfield first. Clean up the crap you leave behind before you start tearing up virgin land for lego houses. Land isn't like a paper plates for you to have a clean one just to throw away to save on washing up.

Brownfield first, and then garden cities. Carefully considered town planning and architectural design.

CLAPTON

Doozergirl wrote: »

There isn't 'a' greenbelt, there is essentially one green belt. Most of our land is greenbelt, so it isn't all paddocks with no public footpaths, it forms the majority of UK land.

It's so contentious because it's hugely profitable for large developers to buy swathes of pasture land and turn into into developments of 500+ houses, not only through land value, but the cost of developing a clean sheet is so much lower and there is less intricate planning.

They refuse to develop smaller brownfield sites and put pressure on local authorities to make green field available. There is huge potential for brownfield development in London.

Policy should be strictly brownfield first. Clean up the crap you leave behind before you start tearing up virgin land for lego houses. Land isn't like a paper plates for you to have a clean one just to throw away to save on washing up.

strange that all that brownfield land is available and yet no entrepreneur wants to make a bob or two by developing it; especially as there are thousands of small builders.

ukcarper

Doozergirl wrote: »

There isn't 'a' greenbelt, there is essentially one green belt. Most of our land is greenbelt, so it isn't all paddocks with no public footpaths, it forms the majority of UK land. Move greenbelt borders, you only move the paddock owners (you still need planning permission for those, you can't just set one up)

It's so contentious because it's hugely profitable for large developers to buy swathes of pasture land and turn into into developments of 500+ houses, not only through land value increase, but the cost of developing a clean sheet is so much lower and there is less intricate planning.

They refuse to develop smaller brownfield sites and put pressure on local authorities to make green field available. There is still huge potential for brownfield development, even in London. When we lived in London, it would take hours to reach greenbelt and see the countryside. As a kid, I just didn't see it. The closest, which is nowhere near, was one of the commons.

Policy should be strictly brownfield first. Clean up the crap you leave behind before you start tearing up virgin land for lego houses. Land isn't like a paper plates for you to have a clean one just to throw away to save on washing up.

Brownfield first, and then garden cities. Carefully considered town planning and architectural design.

The majority of land is not green belt only designated areas around urban areas.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

strange that all that brownfield land is available and yet no entrepreneur wants to make a bob or two by developing it; especially as there are thousands of small builders.

Sometimes the cleaning up of brown field sites can make the sites less profitable and the cost could be prohibitive to small builders. So why not just abolish planning laws and build all over the countryside willy nilly.

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

Sometimes the cleaning up of brown field sites can make the sites less profitable and the cost could be prohibitive to small builders. So why not just abolish planning laws and build all over the countryside willy nilly.

'less profitable'

and

'cost would be prohibitive to small builders'

is there really that massive difference between the costs (and /or skills) of large builders and small ones?


you may well wish to abolish planning laws and build all over the countryside will nilly but I favour sensible reforms of the planning laws and abolition of extra taxes and levies on people that buy new build houses.

you may also wish to reflect upon how the planning rules and levies make developing brown field sites sufficiently unattractive that small builders won't build there.