The London Green Belt Council                                        Notes: Issue 143 April 2006

Scare Headlines about changes in Green Belt Policy

I have always been wary of newspaper headlines about green belt, whatever party is in power, because they are as apt to represent wishful thinking by interested parties, or the desire of editors to scare readers, as they are to represent a real situation. A recent example arose following a speech by the shadow chancellor George Osborne on 8th February. He had been discussing aspects of housing policy and the taxing and planning systems. I do not have the text of what he said but scare headlines the next day, and joyful squeaks from professional planning bodies showed how his remarks could be interpreted. The Times report of 9th February bore the headline ‘Tories to aid first-time buyers by building on green belt’. Its accompanying report did not seem to me to justify the headline; and the introductory paragraph of the report suggested that the reporter (or her editor) may have been confusing green belt and green field. There were similar reports in other papers.

 

Hopeful speculation followed these reports. An item in ‘Planning’ by the Vice-President of the Town and Country Planning Association included the remarks that the designation ‘green belt’ is now “as British as Fish and Chips and as impregnable as the White Cliffs of Dover. But popularity and longevity should not be a sufficient test of suitability”, and “Those panels examining the regional spatial strategies have an opportunity to drive through sensible changes that local authorities find very difficult to deliver” (That in itself seems to imply approval of unelected bodies and contempt for elected ones.)

 

As our new President, Theresa Villiers (MP for Chipping Barnet) is Mr. Osborne's number two in the shadow Treasury team, we asked her for her comments - see minutes of last LGBC meeting enclosed. She was emphatic that nothing Mr. Osborne had said should be construed as weakening the Conservative Party's support for green belt.

 

Reverting to the item in Planning, I was struck also by its author's reference to green belt as a tourniquet. He continued “Rather than a tourniquet should we not be seeing whether approaches such as Copenhagen’s ‘fingers’ of growth plan can be applied?” That caused a flutter in my ancient memory. Have we not been here before? It was entitled ribbon development, and it was the cause of many of the problems of the 1930s - 1950s, which led to the creation of green belts to save the situation. Is it not incredible, and much to the discredit of the planning professional organisations, that they are trying to push us all backwards? And shouldn’t any government resist this with firm determination?  Even if green belt, as a later item in the RTPI Journal describes it, is “the last remaining shibboleth of the post-war planning system”, that does not make it right to destroy it.

 

Planning for Gypsy and Traveller Caravan Sites

The Deputy Prime Minister's Office issued an important circular on the above subject on 2nd February 2006. Its number is ODPM Circular 01/2006. Members whose areas are affected by the gypsy/traveller problem, or by their tendency to argue that they are a special class to whom ordinary planning considerations do not apply, should obtain a copy from a Stationary Office shop or via a bookseller, price £9. Alternatively it is downloadable free from the ODPM website: www.odpm.gov.uk

 

It is too long to give much detail here, but its purpose is to lay out Government policy and show how gypsy and traveller sites should be treated in local plans. Its aim is to stress that those groups have the same rights as others, and should be catered for accordingly in the planning system. Its implied message (which I think could have been made clearer), is that the rights also carry obligations to respect the planning system.

 

The following points are worth noting:

a) Paragraph 4 includes “Creating and sustaining strong communities for the benefit of all members of society including the gypsy and traveller community is at the heart of the Government’s Respect agenda. These communities will depend ultimately on a shared commitment to a common set of values, clear rules and a willingness for people to act together to resolve differences. They will also require effective enforcement action to tackle the poor behaviour of some individuals and families.....”

b) Para 12 includes: “The circular comes into effect immediately. Its main intentions are:

- to reduce the number of unauthorised encampments and developments and the conflict and controversy they cause and to make enforcement more effective where local authorities have complied with the guidance in this circular.

- to increase significantly the number of gypsy and traveller sites in appropriate locations with planning permission in order to address under-provision over the next 3-5 years.

- to recognise, protect and facilitate the traditional travelling way of life of gypsies and travellers, whilst respecting the interests of the settled community.

 

 There are several other subsections as well as the above.

c) ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ are defined as: ‘Persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their Family’s or dependents’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily or permanently, but excluding members of an organised group of travelling show people or circus people travelling together as such.’ [N.B. my underlining].

d)  I reproduce paragraphs 49 - 51 in full;

 

49. There is a general presumption against inappropriate development within green belts. New gypsy and traveller sites in the green belt are normally inappropriate development, as defined in Planning Policy Guidance 2: Green Belts (PPG2). National Planning policy on green belts applies equally to applications for planning permission from gypsies and travellers and the settled population. Alternatives should be explored before green belt locations are considered. Pressure for development of sites on green belt land can usually be avoided if the local planning authority allocates sufficient sites elsewhere in its area, in its Local Development Framework (LDF); to meet identified need. Criteria-based policies in development plan documents (DPDs) for the location of gypsy and traveller sites should not depart from national planning policy as set out in PPG2.

 

50. The presence of green belt will constrain and limit opportunities for identifying gypsy and traveller sites in some areas. The general extent of the green belt should be addressed through the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) in the first instance. PPG2 makes clear that once the general extent of green belt has been approved, and once detailed green belt boundaries have been established in adopted development plans, they should only be altered exceptionally.

 

51  Alterations to green belt boundaries can be used in exceptional circumstances for housing and other types of development appropriate for the green belt. Such alterations have often been used in cases where a local authority’s area contains a high proportion of green belt land and no other suitable sites outside the green belt exist. Such an exceptional limited alteration to the defined green belt boundary (which might be to accommodate a site inset within the green belt) could be considered to meet a specific identified need for a gypsy and traveller site in the same way as such an alteration could be used for any other type of development. Such a proposal should be brought forward through the plan-making process. Where land is removed from the green belt in this way, it should be specifically allocated in a DPD as a gypsy and traveller site only.

 

e) Annex E (Guidance to Gypsies and Travellers making Planning applications) includes: ‘You should establish whether the site you are interested in is in the green belt or other area of special protection. Development in such areas is subject to stricter control and the likelihood of getting planning permission for any development is much lower than if the site were on ‘ordinary’ land. You should consider undertaking a local search to establish whether there are any restrictions (such as injunctions) on the use of the land’.                  

 

Later in these Notes I quote from a number of recent planning decisions concerning gypsies or travellers . I am sure that I am not alone in finding them confusing and contradictory; they show the difficulty which any genuine attempt to bring such free­lance people within the scope of a complicated legal system is bound to face. There is nothing wrong in being determined free-lancers: the trouble is caused by those who want to exploit the legal system, by tying it into knots through persistently ignoring the law and delaying its elephantine attempts to catch up with the real world. This circular is undoubtedly an attempt to find a way out of this situation, but time, and the alertness of local authorities and bodies like ours, will show whether the attempt creates more problems than it solves. The basic problem here seems to be that a wish to find space for all people who want, quite legitimately, to move about is likely to earmark more land than would be needed by the same population if they stayed put.

 

Sale of Field Strips: Government Advice.

This is not only, or even mainly, a green belt problem, but members might find it worth remembering that advice issued by ODPM to planning authorities last year on how to bear down on the practice included:

- The first line of defence is vigilance and monitoring advertisements;

- Authorities could issue directions to remove permitted development rights for fences or other means of enclosure, and to prevent the stationing of caravans;

- There are powers under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to require the discontinuation of any use of land or the removal of any building or works;

- Owners can be required to remove the unsightly consequences of rural plot creation;

- In extreme cases compulsory purchase of the offending land may be appropriate.

 

 ‘Protected areas of search’ in Leeds

The above rather mysterious title had been adopted by Leeds as a version of the old ‘white land’, i.e. land which was not to be developed yet but might be treated like green belt in the meantime. It wanted to upgrade 34 such sites to full green belt status in order to give them the greater protection. Dismissing the proposal, the inspector of the local plan said that the sites should continue to be treated as long-term reserve and help maintain the permanence of green belt boundaries. But is not the long-term situation better served by making land green belt? We have had innumerable problems, some going back twenty to thirty years, in the Metropolitan Green Belt arising because people thought that land was green belt when in fact it was not. It would seem better to make as much land as possible green belt now, and to give the ‘long-term reserve’ land a title which makes its purpose and status clear.

 

Planning Decisions

1) Horse Walker is appropriate in green belt. This is not, as I first thought, the equine equivalent of a dog walker, but was a 35' diameter circular area for exercising horses, surrounded by a 2 metre fence, and which had stables and concrete-standing nearby. The local authority, in S. Yorks, had required the removal of the walker and the hard standing. The inspector said that, in the context of the extensive outdoor horse area which was used for outdoor recreation, the walker was small-scale and not inappropriate, and had no material effect on the openness of the area.

 

2) Animal sanctuary allowed but caravan to supervise it refused. Still in South Yorkshire, an appellant kept a variety of animals and birds on her land, not for agricultural purposes but as a sanctuary. It therefore needed planning permission. There were various sheds etc on the site and the owner had a caravan there. The Council issued an enforcement order for the removal of the caravan but not the sheds. The owner appealed.

The inspector decided that since the land was not used for agricultural purposes planning permission was required. Since the Council’s order had not specified the sheds, they would be treated as having planning permission by virtue of s. 173 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as amended by s.5 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991. (This says in effect that if an enforcement order could have ordered the removal of works or buildings did not do so, they shall be treated as having planning permission so long as the actual requirements of the notice have been complied with.)  This would enable the rescue of sick and injured animals to continue. But the caravan was not justified, and it would make nonsense of planning policy if someone wishing to pursue a hobby in such an area could override planning policy with ease. He ruled that insufficient need for a caravan had been established. (The note I have does not make clear whether the council’s omission of the sheds from the order was accidental or deliberate).

 

3) Don't build your own orangery in green belt. An 18th c. house in Essex green belt had a major addition (presumably with planning permission) which made it a substantial family house in large grounds. The owner wanted to add a well-designed orangery which would “enhance the owner’s sense of well-being”. But the inspector considered that this addition was inappropriate development, and the high quality of the scheme did not make it acceptable.

 

4) Sites for medical and similar facilities. Proposals to use green belt for medical or semi-medical purposes often attract sympathy but these applications have to be considered no less carefully than others. This case and the next one illustrate the problems. In this one schemes involving between two and nineteen sheltered dwellings at an existing nursing home in Bristol green belt were designed to create a village atmosphere. The applicants argued that the existing nursing home business would be jeopardised if the appeals were dismissed. The inspector noted that the primary health care trust had not identified a pressing need for such facilities in the district, and dismissed the appeal.

 

5) In this example the National Epilepsy Society appealed against refusal of permission for a replacement epilepsy centre, 218 homes, a private nursing home and a private sheltered housing block in Buckinghamshire green belt. The Deputy Prime Minister recovered jurisdiction of the appeal. The inspector rejected the appellant's claim that a 31% increase in the footprint was insignificant. He considered that the harm to the green belt arose almost entirely from the enabling development, and little consideration: had been given to alternatives like refurbishment. The Deputy Prime Minister agreed. Although the inclusion of affordable and key-worker accommodation was a benefit, there was no evidence that the proposal was the only way to get it. The special needs accommodation was not a benefit to which additional weight should be attached. Measures less harmful to the green belt could be devised. He dismissed the appeal.

 

6) Proposals for redevelopment of former hospital site rejected. The site was formerly a Canadian Red Cross memorial hospital in Bedfordshire. It was now designated in the local plan as a Major Developed Site in green belt. This means, of course, that rebuilding can take place in accordance with criteria set out in PPG2. It does not mean as applicants sometimes seem to think, that anything goes. In this case the proposal was for 191 dwellings including 42 affordable homes, on part of the site which already had extant permission for 135 dwellings. But the inspector advised the DPM to refuse permission because of the site’s remote and unsustainable location. The DPM agreed.

 

7) London Underground’s Park and Ride facility refused consent. The proposal was for a large parking area at Hatton Cross, West London. The DPM and the S/S for Transport accepted the inspector's recommendation that the extensive area of hard surfacing, lighting columns, additional street furniture, and parked cars for most of the day and evening would greatly reduce the openness of the green belt. The reduction of harmful vehicle emissions was a broad aim of the proposal rather than an out-of-the-ordinary consideration that would overcome the conflict with the presumption against inappropriate development in green belt,

 

8) Finally I return to gypsies and summarise four cases which I hope will clarify their situation in planning terms.

i)   A family had long occupied mobile homes and caravans on green belt land in South Beds. Five years ago they applied for planning permission, which was refused, and they were ordered to leave within six months. They appealed. The inspector recommended, and the DPM agreed, that the appeal should be refused but the appellants should be given 18 months to comply. After the 18 months had expired another court ordered them to comply by December 2004. They did not, but applied for the order to be set aside. They later submitted another planning application for five mobile homes on the land. This was refused. The case went to the High Court to consider whether they were in contempt by refusing to leave. They claimed that the earlier injunction to leave had not been properly drawn. The High Court held that it had been. They then argued that it should be suspended for 18 months or until the appeal against the refusal of the second application had been determined, saying that they had nowhere to go. The court refused to suspend the injunction and ordered committal to prison - but suspended that if they left the land by specified dates (not quoted in the report).

 

This was the situation last October. One must ask how one squares this pantomime with the theory that gypsies want to live a nomadic life.

 

ii)  Still in Bedfordshire, an inspector recommended to the DPM that the stationing of caravans by various gypsy families in green belt should be permitted because, though they were inappropriate development, the lack of alternative sites and the disruption of the children's education constituted very special circumstances. The DPM overruled the inspector and dismissed the appeal.  The applicants went to the High Court claiming that the DPM had failed to give adequate reasons for his action. The High Court agreed, noting particularly a local headmaster’s evidence on the educational aspect. It remitted the case to the DPM for reconsideration.

 

iii) In Kent an extended gypsy family occupied a site which was both green belt and in an AONB. When planning permission for 7 caravans and 2 mobile homes was refused they appealed, claiming that there was no other suitable site and that rejection of the appeal would force them to return to roadside living. The DPM did reject it, saying that the shortage of sites did not outweigh the harm to the area's openness. The Council's failure to assess the area’s total need for sites did not amount to very special circumstances, nor did the children’s educational needs as none of them required special teaching.

 

iv) A site in Bromley was divided into 800 parcels in 1974 - long before the present field strips saga, each site about 30m by 40m in size. Unmade access roads, a pot-holed track, and a serious litter problem contribute to a general aspect of decay. A gypsy family applied for permission to have 3 mobile homes, 2 touring caravans, a utility room and a portacabin on the site. Bromley Council refused and the gypsies appealed. The DPM recovered the appeal for his own determination because of its significance for green belt.

 

He concluded that in its existing condition the site damaged the openness of the green belt and the proposals would be inappropriate development. At the time of the appeal the appellants were not living on the site and were undoubtedly gypsies for the purposes of planning law. There was a local need for sites for gypsies, but the appellant had not demonstrated a need to live on the particular site. He had not registered on a waiting list and “had not been particularly thorough in his search for a site”. As to children's education, his children would need to attend nursery school and living on the site may help that, but there was no evidence of special need and nothing that would constitute very special circumstances in the context of green belt policy.

 

The appellant asked that, if full planning permission were not granted, he should have temporary permission, for three years. He also claimed that, though he was not then living on the site, it was his property and his home, and the European Convention on Human Rights referred to everyone’s right to enjoy one's home.

 

The DPM rejected the appeal on all counts. The proposal was inappropriate in green belt. Temporary planning permission was not justified and would do unacceptable harm. There was no overriding educational reason for continuing to live on the appeal site. The interference with human rights must be balanced against public interest, which in this case can only be safeguarded by refusing planning permission.

 

 Two Pluses and a Minus                                                       

1) The Harpenden Green Belt Association has sent me a document which is modestly described as “A first and rudimentary attempt to answer the question ‘How Sustainable is Harpenden’”. It is an extremely clear framework for how a local society could set about measuring its own town's resources. It concentrates on the town rather than its surroundings. The chairman, of the association is Mr. Richard Thomas, c/o 51 Bloomfield Rd, Harpenden AL5 4DD (no phone number given).

 

2) I have been approached by Mr. Gerry Saunders of 6 Rookfield Avenue, Muswell Hill, N10 3TS (020 8883 7274) to tell me of the creation of a new organisation ‘Friends of Alexandra Park’ arising from the desire of residents to ensure that the parkland surrounding the palace is preserved for the benefit of local recreation and wildlife following the granting of a 125 year lease of the palace for commercial purposes to a development group Firoka. This is not, of course, green belt but the hill on which the palace stands is worth special efforts to ensure that commercial interests do not spoil it, so I promised to mention it in these Notes.

 

3) Finally, so that you can end these notes in a bad temper, I close with a document ‘The Shape of Things to Come: Transforming and Revitalising Thurrock’ issued in November 2005 by Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation. I get very irritated by the grandiose verbiage of documents of this genre, each of which presents its vision of an economically rosy future for its area as one of immense possibilities. They must try, of course, but the more of this waffle one reads the less one believes it. This one is no exception. It is exceptionally attractively designed and illustrated, but it seems to have overlooked green belt even though in 2003 Thurrock District had hectares of it. There are references to open space, degraded greenfield land, environmental quality and public realm, (whatever that means), green space and public realm, and green grid, but not one that I can spot about the existence of something called green belt. No doubt that is unintentional. After all, in very faint small print on the back page is the disclaimer “.... We do not guarantee or warrant the accuracy or completeness, factual correctness or liability of any information in the particulars.......”