Nearly 3,500 historic planning applications could be reviewed and approved following the reclassification of green belt land to grey belt; releasing land that could yield 27,000 new homes. Data from development site sourcing firm Searchland has revealed previously rejected planning applications could be approved because the proposed land would now be classified as grey belt under new guidelines.
The government has committed to building 1.5m in this Parliament and in the last few months announced major change to planning in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) including a series of Golden Rules; in which the default answer to development is largely yes, especially where the proposed site is brownfield, or grey belt.
The firm undertook a review of their own data around planning applications since 2010 and identified 3,425 applications which were rejected on the basis of them being located on green belt land; which now meets the grey belt criteria. In total the firm believes 3.4m homes could be unlocked through 30,597 grey belt sites across England
Co-founder of Searchland, Hugh Gibbs, commented:
“With the grey belt now formally recognised by the National Planning Policy Framework, developers are benefitting from a significant increase in the number of opportunities available to them.
As our previous research found, the grey belt could potentially deliver 3.4m new homes to the market, but it’s not just current grey belt plots that need to be considered.
Since 2010, no less than 3,425 planning applications have been rejected due to the fact they were located in green belt land.
With the creation of the grey belt, the likelihood is that these applications are well worth revisiting as they could lead to the construction of thousands of new homes with a market value to the tune of £12.2bn.”
The South East saw the highest proportion of applications (21%) which could now be approved at a value of £4.8bn estimates Searchland. East of England followed with the next highest proportion at 19%, with the North West at 16%, followed by London (12%), the West Midlands (10%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (10%).
