Green Belt: Basildon and Billericay

Debate between Neil Hudson and Richard Holden

Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I am delighted to have secured this debate after entering the ballot many times.

The origins of the green belt go back certainly to the start of the last century, but perhaps even further, because in 1580 Elizabeth I tried to impose a block on building within three miles of the City of London, in order to prevent the spread of plague. Today, I will talk a little about the Green Belt (London and Home Counties) Act 1938, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, and a large area of land now known as the green belt.

Almost two thirds of undeveloped land in the Basildon borough is green belt, covering some 6,590 hectares. Why this debate today? Basildon council has put forward a new local plan, with a consultation that closed just a few days ago, for 27,000 homes right across the borough—the majority of which are in my constituency—covering a huge quantity of that green belt. There are 25% more homes this year on the green belt, because this Labour Government cut the need for housing in London by 17,000 properties a year and increased it in the home counties by 18,000 properties a year. All those extra properties will be heading to the green belt in constituencies such as mine across Essex and the south of England.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and fellow Essex MP on securing this important debate. His constituency, like mine, has precious green belt that is so important to the environment, biodiversity and our physical and mental health. I acknowledge the need for housing, but does he share my concerns about this Labour Government’s central top-down targets being imposed on communities against their wishes and, equally, their plans to reclassify some of the green belt as grey belt, thereby putting our precious green belt under immense pressure and danger?

[Mr Holden]

I certainly agree, and I was about to move on to that point. None of us on the Opposition Benches is against more housing, but often that housing does not come about because of local need in our constituencies. This is about a Government shying away from difficult conversations about densification in our cities, a mayor who has consistently failed to deliver on his own housing targets, and a failure to redevelop crucial brownfield land in the centre and on the edges of our major cities.

My hon. Friend’s point about the grey belt is particularly important at the moment, because the council is starting to redesignate large areas of my constituency. Just a few years ago, those areas were grade 1 or grade 2 agricultural land. Now, they are being designated as grey belt, despite never having had any buildings on them. I am concerned about what this insidious grey belt phrasing could mean for developments right across the country.

The Government will ask where the housing should go. London is a third less dense than Paris. It seems mad that we are building on virgin greenfield sites rather than densifying our cities, especially at a time when constituents in Essex and across the country are having to cross-subsidise the Mayor of London for his transport. They do not get access to it, but they have to pay for it. If we had greater density in our cities, some of those transport routes would be able to fund themselves.