The “Grey Belt” has arrived
The future is here. And it’s grey.
You want the link? Don’t we all. In a flurry of new PPG out today, along with a consultation response on speeding up plan-making which took […checks notes…] 2 years to come forward… we finally have the new “grey belt” Planning Practice Guidance: here.
So. If I still I have your attention, let’s take a step back…
It’s been just over 2 months since the new NPPF introduced the concept of “grey belt”. I explained the basics here, but for a mega-quick recap:
We have a definition:
We have 2 sides to it: 1 for plan-making, 1 for decision-taking.
For plan-making, the point about “grey belt” is that authorities have to turn to releasing it first in sequence before they get to releasing non-grey greenfield green belt land.
For decision-taking, if site is “grey belt” plus the other things listed at §155 NPPF - including for major housing schemes passing the “golden rules” I wrote about here - then your scheme is no longer “inappropriate development” in the green belt. Which means: (a) no need for very special circumstances under §153 (something I come back in a minute), and (b) there’s no strong reason for refusal under green belt policy under §11(d)(i) and footnote 7, and so (c) your scheme is decided under the tilted balance in favour of granting permission at §11(d)(ii) NPPF. It’s a seismic reversal of the determinative planning policy test - from a presumption against to a presumption in favour - that will apply to hundreds and hundreds of sites all over the country.
So. Those are the basics. And here’s the thing, folks. Those anti-woke warriors at the House of Lords who thought that grey belt policy won’t have any “significant” impacts… well would you believe it… they’re wrong. Because… whisper it quietly: this policy’s already working. Barely 2 months in. To give you just a few examples from the coal face :
Over in Hertfordshire, the members at Hertmsere have just approved Europe’s largest cloud and AI data centre just outside Potters Bar (full disclosure, I act for the applicant). The site was on land which Hertsmere’s officers decided met the definition of “grey belt” (albeit in that case, it was ultimately also supported by very special circumstances anyhow). And then…
Down in leafy Elmbridge in Surrey, a Council not exactly famous for its enthusiasm for development in the green belt, members voted to refuse planning permission against officers advice for a mixed-use commercial, recycling and residential scheme on a site currently used for waste processing and storage next to a train station because… well… green belt, basically (again, full disclosure - I act for the applicant). Appeal lodged in a pre-”grey belt” world. 2 week planning inquiry listed to start next month. Evidence about to be submitted. And then… the other day… officers recommend to members that the site is in fact “grey belt”, and suggest that the Council should not contest the main issue in the appeal. And get this: Members unanimously agreed. Yes, it’s just as Timothée Chalamet predicted: the times they are a’changing.
Over in St Albans, members have just approved (by a 5-4 whisker, but you know: that’s democracy for you) a 550-home scheme in north-west Harpenden following officer’s recommendation that… you guessed it … “it is considered that the site would constitute ‘grey belt’, as defined in the NPPF”. St Albans. That’s right. Last-adopted-a-local-plan-in-1994 St Albans. That one. Approving a 550-home scheme… locally. A majority of members on board. No appeal required. What strange world is this?
Meanwhile in Basildon, members have approved a 250 home scheme in Billericay following officer’s recommendations that “Officers consider that the site constitutes grey belt land”. Again… we’re talking about Basildon. I wrote about it here. Where green belt release was so unpopular it derailed an advanced local plan. Home to a string of successful green belt planning appeals in the last 2 years. But not this time. No. This time members did it all themselves. Are you spotting a trend?
There’s more. Loads more. A battery storage facility in Carrington allowed on appeal with the Inspector’s finding that the site’s “grey belt”. An Inspector found that the site of a proposed extra-care scheme outside Leighton Buzzard meets the definition of grey belt, but that scheme fell down on appeal because it doesn’t provide enough affordable housing to satisfy the “golden rules”. A solar PV scheme in Solihull met the definition of grey belt, although in the end the Inspector allowed the appeal on the basis that very special circumstances existed. At latest count, no fewer than 86 appeal decisions so far refer to “grey belt”… and we’re barely 2 months in.
But there’s a problem - so far, the approach to what is or isn’t “grey belt” has been massively inconsistent. Among planning authorities. Among inspectors. Part of that’s because it’s all so fresh - we’re all trying to work it out from first principles. But another part is that the “grey belt” definition relies on understanding the much-discussed but not-often-understood strategic purposes of what the green belt is actually for - these ones:
Do they seem simple to you? Well. They aren’t. Not one bit.
Those 5 seductively short phrases hide a litany of nebulous words and big ideas. Words which are, in the end, strategic purposes for what our green belts are meant to achieve as a whole. And that’s always been the problem. How do we crow-bar those strategic macro green belt purposes into development-management style tests to be applied to individual application sites?
Well, at last… after decades of waiting… the Government’s finally told us. The PPG on grey belt’s out today: here.
Well. Go on. Read it. That’s the main point of this post. Get going.
Still here? Well, if you’re after 10 headlines I took away from the PPG, maybe I can offer you the following:
(1) It matters.
As the Court of Appeal told us recently, don’t let any idea of planning practice guidance being “just guidance” fool you. Oh no. This has just the same legal status as national policy in the NPPF. So. Read it carefully.
(2) For now, it’s your site that counts.
Lots of the new PPG is about how Councils draw up assessment parcels for a new generation of green/grey belt reviews to inform new local plans. I’ll come back to one of the challenges of doing that in a minute. But, in the meantime, until all of that’s been done (and it’ll take some time), while grey belt sites come forward through applications/appeals as they are in the examples above… the question is not whether some wider strategic parcel drawn up in some green belt review of old meets the definition of the grey belt. No.
The question is whether “the site strongly contributes to the Green Belt purposes a, b or d”. That is to say… your site. The application site itself. Not a wider notional parcel within which it sits.
That might not seem important, but it can matter. Take, for instance, a recently dismissed appeal for 120 homes on the edge of Beaconsfield next to the M40 which is Planning Magazine’s front-page splash du jour (again, full disclosure: I acted for the Appellant). This is the one where, as the headline puts it (pretty accurately) an inspector has found that a “120-home edge-of-town site sandwiched by motorway and trunk road is not grey belt” and dismissed the appeal even though, just as the article says, the scheme involved 50% affordable housing, and the inspector thought “these homes are needed now” because the Council’s housing supply situation was - in the inspector’s view - “dismal”. Still. Not quite “dismal” enough, it would seem.
So what’s happening there? Why did the Inspector decide the site didn’t meet the definition of “grey belt”? If he’d had this new PPG to consider, might that have made a difference? Well… there’s a couple of critical things that Inspector said which the PPG has now addressed - and I’ll come back to those in a moment. But one preliminary and important thing is the parcel the inspector thought he was considering. He thought that even though the appeal site may play a “lesser role” than other, more sensitive, bits of a wider strategic parcel in which it sat, that the wider parcel as a whole made a “strong contribution” to green belt purposes (a) and (b). Even though, of course, nobody was seeking planning permission to develop a wider strategic parcel as a whole. And on the back of that, he found… that the appeal site - because it was part of that bigger parcel - made a strong contribution too. And so did not meet the definition of “grey belt”. We will have to see if and how that kind of approach fits in the world of this new PPG (which, to be clear, and to state the obvious, the Inspector did not have before him when writing his decision).
(3) Sprawl ≠ development.
Not all undeveloped land contributes towards checking “unrestricted sprawl” to the same extent, or at all. And that is because “sprawl” (a pretty awful word, I’ve always thought, when one person’s “sprawl” can be another person’s home… but alas we’ve been stuck with it since Duncan Sandys MP rose in the House of Commons almost exactly 70 years ago to introduce national green belt policy)… “sprawl” is not the same thing as “development”. Sprawl doesn’t just mean e.g. “buildings”. It really doesn’t:
Sprawl is ungainly. It’s awkward. It’s straggling. It’s untidy. Or, as the PPG puts it, it’s about land which “if developed, result in an incongruous pattern of development (such as an extended “finger” of development into the Green Belt)”. That is what sprawl’s about.
On the other hand, if your site has “physical feature(s) in reasonable proximity that could restrict and contain development” - think planting, think topography, think rivers, think roads - or if your site is “partially enclosed by existing development, such that new development would not result in an incongruous pattern of development”, well then the PPG tells us that your site probably doesn’t contribute strongly toward checking unrestricted sprawl.
Might this guidance actually make a difference on the ground? Well, we’ll see. But I think it will. For instance, let’s take that post-new-NPPF but pre-PPG Beaconsfield appeal again: there you have a site “sandwiched” between the built-up edge of Beaconsfield along the A40 trunk road on one side, and the M40 motorway on the other. Those things might just sound like, as the PPG puts it, “physical features” which “could restrict and contain development”. But, of course, that Inspector didn’t have this new PPG. And he found that the site - well, more a wider parcel containing the site, on which see (2) above, but still - that it makes a strong contribution to purpose (a). Well. Again. Time will tell whether and how that kind of thinking fits with this new PPG.
And all of that purpose (a) stuff assumes actually are on the edge of a large built-up area… which I’ll come back to in a sec…
(4) Town ≠ village.
This might sound odd. But a big topic of debate at examinations and inquiries all over the country for many years has been: when the NPPF talks about the green belt preventing neighbouring towns from merging into one another, does it mean towns? Or does it mean something else, e.g. any old settlement. Villages. Hamlets. Whatever. Even though, of course, as you may’ve spotted, it says… towns.
Stranger still, hundreds of green belt reviews all over the country for decades have been written on the basis that the policy shouldn’t be read as meaning towns. Even though that’s what it says. And so parcels of land have been scored highly against green belt purposes if e.g. they separate one village from another.
Which, again, you might think is odd. Because, not to sound like a broken record [Too late for that, Ed.] but… it’s not a policy about villages. It’s a policy about towns. National green belt policy is not interested in preserving local gaps or wedges between particular bits of villages or hamlets or whatever. Of course, those gaps can be very important. And we have other kinds of local policies which can protect them - buffers, local green spaces, wedges, all kinds of things. But national green belt policy is about curbing the sprawl and merger of our largest cities and towns. That’s the point. That’s the strategic purpose. It always was. Duncan Sandys’ big idea focussed on “the great cities”.
Anyhow… now we have it - in black and white. On purpose (b): “this purpose relates to the merging of towns, not villages”.
So. That’s that.
But take care. Because this means that many, many green belt reviews undertaken for decades all over the country (i.e. which assumed that “towns” meant “villages” rather than… you know… “towns”) are now out of date.
NB it’s the same story for purpose (d) - a historic town means… a historic town. Just like it says on the tin. So what if your grey belt site is, for instance, in the setting of a village conservation area? Are we in green belt purpose (d) territory? No. We are not. The PPG tells us that “this purpose relates to historic towns, not villages”. In real life, purpose (d) is interested in places like Oxford, Cambridge, York, Durham… historic towns and cities which the green belt was drawn around like a polo mint expressly to help guard their historic character.
(5) Village ≠ “large built up area”.
A very similar story for purpose (a). Years of arguments over whether it was engaged at all if your site is e.g. on the edge of a village. Even a large-ish village. Well. Now we know. It’s not engaged: “villages should not be considered large built-up areas”. That’s that. But again, watch out for the methodology in antiquated green belt assessments - many (albeit not all) of which are now out of date, and were prepared in a way that is inconsistent with this PPG.
(6) “Towns merging” ≠ towns getting closer together.
If your site is between two towns (again, not villages, towns) that does not on its own mean your site’s playing a strong role in preventing those towns from merging. Even if developing your site would bring those towns physically closer together.
That is because the guidance on purpose (b) is clear. First, purpose (b) is only strongly interested in you if you’re a substantial part of the gap between towns. And even then, even if you are, what really matters is visual separation, i.e. the perception of towns merging.
In other words, if your scheme can be developed “without the loss of visual separation between towns” because of things like “the presence or the close proximity of structures, natural landscape elements or topography that preserve visual separation”, well then… you’re unlikely to be a strong contributor to purpose (b).
Again, you may be thinking… will this make any difference on the ground? Well, I think it will. Take again, for the last time!, that Beaconsfield appeal. There, the Inspector found what he thought was a strong contribution to purpose (b), even though he decided that “there would be no actual merging of the two towns nor a great perception of it; that the topographical distinction between the two settlements would remain as would the delineating role of the M40”. But here’s the thing: on the basis of the new PPG, that’s the exact of finding which would suggest that land is not strongly contributing to greenbelt purpose (b). Which is the opposite of what the inspector found. So… we’ll see. But my bet is that the clarity in this new PPG really will make a difference on the ground.
(7) Not inappropriate development = no green belt harm.
§153 NPPF requires us to give substantial weight to any harm to the green belt, including openness. But (see footnote 55), that isn’t so “in the case of development on previously developed land or grey belt land, where development is not inappropriate”.
That is consistent with judgments like R (Lee Valley Regional Park Authority) v Epping Forest District Council [2016] EWCA Civ 404 where at §25 the Court of Appeal endorsed the finding that “appropriate development is deemed not harmful to the Green Belt…”.
The PPG confirms this position: “if development is considered to be not inappropriate development on previously developed land or grey belt, then this is excluded from the policy requirement to give substantial weight to any harm to the Green Belt, including to its openness.”
(8) Remember the golden rules - even if you aren’t grey belt.
Maybe obvious, but important. These “golden rules” at §156 NPPF. They apply to all residential sites coming forward in the green belt. Not only sites that meet the definition of “grey belt”. All of ‘em. And if you accord with those “golden rules”, §158 gives you “significant weight in favour of the grant of permission”. You get that significant boost whether you are “grey belt” or not.
(9) Remember “very special circumstances” - even if you might be grey belt.
Unless and until we have a new generation of green/grey belt reviews to de-risk planning applications and appeals, you may think you have a “grey belt” site. You may even have over-excitable consultants and barristers telling you it’s a dead cert. And look, it may be. But here’s the problem: if you’re taking these sites through applications and appeals, you won’t know whether (i) the Council/Inspector agree on your site’s contributions to green belt purposes or whether there are “strong reasons” to refuse, or even if they do agree (ii) what they think about the other criteria in §155 NPPF (e.g. locational sustainability), or indeed (iii) whether they agree that you pass the golden rules at §156 NPPF… you won’t know about any of that until you get your decision. By which time, of course, if you’ve been refused… it’s a bit late.
What does this mean? It means that any time - yes literally any time - you are bringing forward a planing application claiming that a site meets the definition of “grey belt”, and so is not inappropriate development in the green belt, you will also have to address the alternative. I.e. that it fails the definition, or fails other bits of §155 NPPF.
Where would that take you? It would take you to a scheme that is, as it was until December 2024, inappropriate development in the green belt. And what does that mean? It would mean that instead of your application be determined under the tilted balance in your favour at §11(d)(ii) NPPF, instead you engage with a balance that tilts against you at §153 NPPF.
And if - big if - you can show that your benefits, taken together, clearly outweigh all of your harms, including harm to the green belt which has to be given substantial weight… then you’ve won. Because if that balance is passed, §153 NPPF is satisfied and national policy deems that so-called “very special circumstances” exist.
In doing that, remember two things.
First, to make sure, if you accord with them, that you weigh passing the “golden rules” and the boost in favour of granting permission in your overall balance, whether you’re “grey belt” or not - see (8) above.
Second, when you’re striking that §153 planning balance, remember that your benefits do not need to be “remarkable” or “unusual” in and of themselves - as the court said here. No. If your benefits, taken together, clearly outweigh your harms… that’s enough. You win. §153 is passed. Without reinventing any wheels.
(10) “Strong reasons” to refuse.
A challenge for local authorities in identifying “grey belt” through this new generation of reviews will be how to deal with land which may have a “strong reason" to refuse permission under footnote 7 NPPF, e.g. because of conflict with national policy on habitats, heritage, national landscapes, flood risk etc.
The challenge will be this: it may be impossible to say whether or not there actually will be a strong reason to refuse under footnote 7 in the abstract. That will often - heck, that will normally - depend on the actual scheme you’re bringing forward, what its uses are, what needs it’s meeting, what its public benefits package looks like, how big it is, how it’s designed, what alternatives you’ve considered, what mitigation measures you’re using etc. etc. etc.
None of which is likely to be information a Council will have when conducting a green/grey belt review to inform a local plan.
For instance - take land in the setting of a listed building. Does that fact that it’s in that setting mean there’s a “strong reason” to refuse planning permission on account of the NPPF’s heritage policy? Which would mean it doesn’t meet the definition of “grey belt”? Well… who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. That depends on how much harm arises to the significance of the listed building and, assuming e.g. that harm is less than substantial, whether it’s outweighed by a scheme’s public benefits under §215 NPPF. Only if the §215 balance is failed do the heritage policies in the NPPF provide a “strong reason” to refuse permission under §11(d)(i) and footnote 7. And only then would land be excluded from the definition of “grey belt”.
But here’s the issue: you can’t answer any those questions until you know what the development proposal actually is. How it’s designed. What its uses are. What benefits it will bring. All of that. And until you answer those questions you don’t know if there’s a strong reason to refuse on account of heritage policy or not. And until you know the answer to that, you can’t tell if your site meets the definition of grey belt. You see the problem? The same goes for almost all the other areas of footnote 7 protection policies.
It’s a quandary. It means that definitively classifying grey belt land through a review-style process informing a local plan will often be impossible. But the PPG understands this - it notes that “it may only be possible to provisionally identify such land as grey belt in advance of more detailed specific proposals”. So. For my money, what we should expect from this new generation of grey belt reviews is a map of land which could meet the grey belt definition, at least so far as contribution to green belt purposes is concerned. But not a map of land which definitely will meet the definition.
Lots to digest, #planoraks. It remains very much all go. It’s bamboozling. There’s so much to keep up with. I’ll do my very best to help! Although I have a sinking feeling that my blogging may quieten a bit this spring as I kick off a 4 month planning inquiry in Kent into a scheme which includes 8,400 homes and a number of other chunky things which no less a luminary than Polly Toynbee has called “a make-or-break test for the Government’s housing revolution”. Well. I’ll keep you posted!
In the meantime, stay well #planoraks. Enjoy these lovely early buds of spring - they’re definitely making site visits much more pleasant, that’s for sure. Still - wrap up warm out there. Keep your eyes on the PPG. And, as ever, do your level best to #keeponplanning.
