Dacorum Borough Council, the Conservative-led council in my constituency, has done a fantastic job of building new houses, including social housing and council houses. Can the Prime Minister assure me that we will not be pushed into the green belt any more than we already have been and that we can protect the Chilterns in my constituency?
The Prime Minister :-
I join my right hon. Friend in praising his local council for ensuring we build homes in the right places so that our young people can fulfil the dream of home ownership. He is also right to say that this Government will always protect our precious green spaces. The recent changes in our planning reforms will ensure that we can protect the green belt everywhere. His local community and others will benefit from those protections as we keep our local areas beautiful.
Epsom Green Belt hope that Epsom & Ewell Borough Council change their ways and learn from the direction of UK Government. In recent years, there has been significant development on Green Belt approved by E&EBC.
– Saving of Downs Farm only bright spot , as brownfield priorities missed
Given the Government’s “brownfield first” brief, it looks like the planners did not get the memo. They certainly did not get the new memo from Government saying that it is not necessary to review Green Belt for housing. And they appear not to have taken the hint from neighbouring Elmbridge, who creatively avoided any Green Belt destruction, and Mole Valley, whose councillors this month voted unanimously to remove all Green Belt sites from its Local Plan.
Out of 5,400 new homes proposed in the Draft Local Plan (2023-2040) , with Epsom & Ewell BC councillors due to take a final Section 18 publication decision on 30 January, some 2,175 homes (almost 41%) are earmarked to be built on the borough’s GreenBelt land.
Of nine “Preferred Option” development sites proposed, five are Green Belt – with Downs Farm, where 650 homes were proposed, only narrowly missing the cut after a huge campaign by residents.
Over 55 hectares – or some 137 acres – of Green Belt land could be sacrificed. The plans include one gigantic estate of some 1,500 homes on land around Horton Farm, which will have its Green Belt status stripped away.
The “Preferred Options” for Green Belt development are:
150 homes around West Park Hospital
1,500 homes around Horton Farm
25 homes next to Chantilly Way
350 homes on the sports fields by Ewell East Station
150 homes on sports pitches at Hook Road Arena (land owned by the Council)
Only on its own land can the Council specify 100% affordable homes – the rest will be 40% at best, as developers have many canny ways to get round this stipulation and build more profitable higher end housing.
The Council even admits that they have already taken some slugs of Green Belt land for housing, on the NESCOT campus and the five hospitals housing developments – but they need more.
There is a whole Appendix (Appendix 4) revealing yet more Green Belt sites that have been offered up by opportunistic developers in a “ Call for Sites” that have been mercifully excluded as “Preferred Options”. Much of the analysis seems subjective and open to question.
And then there is this – the previous Council Green Belt studies of 2017-19 have been considered out of date and a new 2022 Green Belt Study has been commissioned- but we all have yet to see this document.
EEBC needs to plunder more Green Belt, as it appears only a few brownfield landowners came forward in its “Call for Sites”. So the Plan is offering just around 1,000 homes in Epsom Town Centre until year 2040, and the same meagre number over 15 years on Urban Land Availability Assessment sites, and it reckons the same number again for existing planning permissions.
So where is the real challenge taken up, to redevelop Epsom Town surroundings, which most commentators agree could do with some rejuvenation, to say the least? Well, the Kiln Lane and Longmead industrial areas are said to be off limits, according to consultants for EEBC, because of the 1,800 jobs there. So not a single new brownfield affordable home is put forward here, with no imaginative plan to mix housing with job creation and revitalise an area close to the station, shops and entertainment facilities that many people prefer.
Smaller brownfield developments of around 5 to 10 homes each, do not seem to be in the Draft Plan either, although we may have missed the brownwood for the trees “We are left with the conclusion that the planners – and by extension our ruling Councillors – are in a “Call for Sites” trap. This has inhibited visionary thinking and pro-active engagement with urban developers on how much-needed affordable housing might be built in tandem with an exciting redevelopment programme that Epsom’s brownfield areas so desperately need” said Yufan Si, campaign leader for
Keep Epsom & Ewell’s Green Belt
“All they seem able to do about it is to bulldozer yet another field of our Green Beltheritage” said Ms Si.
A determined group of Epsom & Ewell residents, representing over 1,700 petitioners , that took to the podium at last night’s Planning Committee (Jan 19th) at Epsom Town Hall to ask councillors eleven questions about the threat of Green Belt sites being included as “Preferred Options” in the imminent Draft Local Plan.
Given every indication that the Government no longer thinks Green Belt reviews are necessary with housing targets advisory only, and fresh from Mole Valley District Coucil’s unanimous vote to remove Green Belt sites, residents challenged the councillors and planners to seize the opportunity to save the Green Belt now and focus on brownfield sites for new affordable homes.
In answer to one question about whether planners had consulted HM Inspectors about Green Belt removal, council officers confirmed that, as EEBC was at an initial stage of decision taking , they had no need to consult the Inspectorate at this time, unlike Mole Valley are now required to do.
Given this difference, residents believe that it will now be entirely the responsibility of Councillors – the majority of whom are Residents Association voted in to preserve Epsom & Ewell’s special character, if Green Belt land ends up being destroyed forever. According to CPRE, over 99% of sites earmarked for development by local authorities eventually get built upon, so it is both crucial and necessary to ensure no Green Belt sites are included at the outset.
Residents vow to return to make more representations at the final decision-taking Planning Committee meeting on 30th January before the EEBC Draft Plan is published on 1st February 2023.
Keep Epsom & Ewell Green Belt 