Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Bill
Debate between Richard Bacon and Andrew Turner
Mr Bacon
Indeed. When I talked about 1.2% of the land—the hon. Lady said 1.1%—I was referring to houses. She is right that gardens take up at least another 2% or 3%. I believe that railways take up 2.2%, and that the built environment as a whole, including absolutely everything—factories, offices, roads, railways, churches—takes up about 9% or 10%, so 89% to 91% of our land area is not built on.
I am sure that there will be discussion of the green belt, but I will not dwell on it, partly because we do not have any green belt in Norfolk. Searching Google images for “green belt” gives maps of where the green belt is, showing that none of it is in Norfolk. We have a huge amount of land, and the green belt is an unfortunate distraction. It has been created in such a way that there are places that are not in the green belt, including in my constituency, that I would be horrified to see built on. I would sit in front of the bulldozer to prevent it. There are also places that are in the green belt but probably should not be. We need to be more intelligent about that. Personally, I think people’s instinct to preserve beautiful countryside is good, and I completely support it. The Campaign to Protect Rural England wrote to me saying, “We’re interested to hear that you’ve got a Bill, and we are quite supportive of this sort of approach, even though you might think that all we’re interested in is hugging trees and protecting wild animals.”
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I, too, am concerned about the issue of the green belt. We do not have any green belt on my island, but a lot of people talk of it as though it were green belt and are surprised when building on it is not stopped.
Mr Bacon
My hon. Friend has a good point. The Isle of Wight is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. If we had the north American approach of zoning, which is much harder-edged and makes it absolutely clear whether somewhere can ever be built on, we might make more progress. That is probably outwith the terms of the debate, as would be a long discussion of the green belt, but it is an important point because it relates to people’s deep instincts about land use. Those instincts are sound in many ways, because we want to protect beautiful countryside. As a representative of a rural area with a lot of farmers, I should say that we also want to keep land to grow food on.
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