Spring 2021 Fieldwork © Alamy Pressure builds on the Green Belt Inside this issue ebruary saw planning and plans for 257,944 homes to be built Transforming rural environmental organisations, on land removed from the Green Belt bus services p5 Fgovernment officials and MPs – a 475% increase on the numbers attend a virtual roundtable event from 2013. Meanwhile, our survey of Celebrating rural to launch CPRE’s new report, over 2,000 people found that 46% churchyards p6 Countryside Next Door: State of reported visiting green spaces more the Green Belt 2021. Our latest since the start of lockdown – up Two-minute litter picks look at the threats facing the open significantly from 35% in April 2020, clean up Somerset p7 land around our cities found that and suggesting that people have housing pressures have more than increasingly been looking to local Standing up for a West quadrupled since 2013, despite a countryside for their mental health Yorkshire Green Belt p8 soaring public appreciation of the and wellbeing. green space it offers. Commenting on the findings, CPRE The campaign to While our new polling reveals that chief executive Crispin Truman said: save Stonehenge p11 67% of adults think protecting and ‘Local countryside and green space enhancing local green spaces should has been a lifeline through lockdown. Improving housing be a higher priority after lockdown, The government can and must act design p13 local plans for housing on the to stop the loss of Green Belt and Green Belt mean that countryside ensure greater access to nature and The impact of litter accessible to over 30 million people green space is at the heart of our in lockdown p14 is increasingly being targeted for planning system – by making the best development. Our research revealed use of brownfield sites.’ Continued on p2 CONTACTS COVER STORY Fieldwork Pressure builds Volume 18, Issue 1 on the Green Belt Editor Continued from p1 Oliver Hilliam [email protected] Fieldwork is the newsletter The brownfield alternative brownfield land on their registers to of the CPRE The countryside CPRE continues to highlight the previously accommodate such numbers. London and charity, published in April, developed sites that provide a sustainable Bristol will face the largest pressure on August and November. alternative to building on the Green Belt, their Green Belts, having to find space CPRE is the countryside and could supply enough land for over for 177,907 and 5,948 homes respectively charity that campaigns to 1.3 million homes. One such site, York once all of their current brownfield land promote, enhance and Central, next to the city’s railway station, has been developed. protect the countryside for has recently been approved for a everyone’s benefit, wherever regeneration scheme that is set to provide The need for proactive planning they live. up to 2,500 new homes (40% of which While the government’s recent urban ISSN 1744-8905 (Print) will be affordable) on 100 acres of land, focus is welcome, there needs to be ISSN 1744-8913 (Online) creating around 6,500 new jobs. In more proactive identification of brownfield, contrast, a York Green Belt site of the and the government needs to allow time same size that would have had a negative for this. Otherwise, Green Belts will impact on Askham Bog Nature Reserve continue to be lost to unaffordable (and was spared from development housing while swathes of derelict land last year following a CPRE-supported lies wasted and underused. The threat campaign) would only have provided 500 to Green Belt land has increased car-dependent homes. considerably since regional plans were CPRE The countryside charity The proposed affordability of the York abolished in 2009, and since the adoption 5-11 Lavington Street Central site also highlights that only of the NPPF in 2012. The consequences of London SE1 0NZ T 020 7981 2800 one in ten of the homes built on Green these policies needs to be addressed if F 020 7981 2899 Belt between 2015/16 and 2019/20 are we are to prevent the further loss of the [email protected] considered to be affordable. On this land that is crucial for people’s health www.cpre.org.uk trajectory, we risk losing ever more and wellbeing, for the wildlife that calls @CPRE Green Belt while having no impact on it home and for mitigating the impacts of Campaign to Protect Rural the affordability crisis. Furthermore, the climate emergency. England is a company limited by since we last reported in October 2019, guarantee, registered in England, the average density of newly created The Strategic Environmental number 4302973. Registered charity number 1089685. residential addresses within the Green Assessments process must continue All the articles and features Belt land has remained at just 14 dwellings to identify less harmful alternative sites within this publication are per hectare (dph). This is an incredibly copyright of the CPRE and may land-hungry rate and half the 31dph To enable the Green Belt to continue not be reprinted or distributed without the prior written consent average of developments outside of to fulfil its function, while allowing for of the publishers. the Green Belt. the provision of new homes, CPRE recommends the government reintroduces The proposed uplift in housing the use of strategic city regional planning targets for cities and urban centres into planning law through the upcoming will massively increase the pressure Planning Bill. The Strategic Environmental on some Green Belts Assessments process must also be maintained, so that it can continue to In December 2020, the government identify more sustainable and less harmful announced a change in approach to alternative sites. Most importantly, the calculating housing need in England, government must introduce a clear announcing a ‘cities and urban centres ‘brownfield first’ policy in the Planning uplift’ whereby 20 of England’s largest Bill, to ensure that suitable previously urban areas will have their housing targets developed land can be prioritised for increased by 35%. This proposed uplift redevelopment through a more proactive will massively increase the pressure on approach to identifying brownfield sites. the Green Belts that surround six of Find out more: Read our full State of the these cities which don’t have enough Green Belt report at cpre.org.uk/resources 2 Fieldwork Spring 2021 SUCCESSES IN THIS ISSUE Featured Break through contents How volunteers are making a difference Pressure builds on the Green Belt p1 ‘Ox-Cam Expressway’ cancelled p3 A vision for better planning p4 A fair deal for the countryside p4 Valuing local landscapes p5 Transforming rural bus services p5 Celebrating our churchyards p6 © Richard Gravett © Richard Cleaning up Somerset p7 Devon rail reopening p7 Helping Nature recover p8 Starting a community Eastbourne becomes ‘Treebourne’ campaign p8 Supporting community renewables p9 CPRE Sussex has been taking an active trees, and recruit the volunteers needed role in a project that helped volunteers to plant them. Anyone interested in helping Saving Gloucestershire’s plant over 6,000 trees at community out should visit treebourne.org and stone stiles p10 events held just before Christmas. While click ‘get involved’. The defence of Stonehenge lockdown meant that planting paused for Meanwhile, CPRE Sussex’s Plant your World Heritage Site p11 a while, the ‘Treebourne’ project still aims Postcode project has helped Hove Junior Better rural broadband p11 to double the town’s urban canopy and School plant an evergreen hedge around Reusing redundant bring nature back into the streets. the playground. The school is by a busy retail space p12 After Eastbourne Borough Council road and hopes the hedge will help screen declared a climate emergency last year, air pollution as well as attract wildlife. Improving and enforcing design standards p13 CPRE Sussex became part of the Elsewhere, the project has recently Eastbourne ECO Action Network – a planted a community orchard for the Defending Devon’s volunteer-run organisation created to help Sylvan Hall estate in Brighton, providing air quality p14 the council achieve carbon neutrality by a fruitful green space to enjoy. Keep a Litter in lockdown p14 2030. Treebourne organisers continue to look out for the latest projects and other A snapshot of search for sites, raise the money to buy campaign news at cpresussex.org.uk rural England p16 ‘Ox-Cam Expressway’ cancelled CPRE celebrated the March decision in order to protect the countryside of the to scrap the Oxford to Cambridge Great Ouse Valley. ‘expressway’ road following campaigning Paul Miner, CPRE’s head of land use and from CPRE groups along the route. planning, said the road was ‘in complete CPRE Oxfordshire director, Helen contradiction to the government’s Marshall, welcomed the decision, but will commitment to protect our rural heritage be monitoring any other unsustainable and tackle the climate and ecological proposals – with ‘targeted, localised emergencies.’ Instead of risking large road improvements’ still on the cards. areas of farmland, he said ‘we want to Meanwhile, CPRE Bedfordshire urged a see the levelling-up of the midlands and rethink of plans to build a million homes the north prioritised’ to make use of their in the ‘Ox-Cam Arc’ and called for a less vast areas of brownfield land in urgent damaging route for East West Rail need of regeneration. Spring 2021 Fieldwork 3 OTHER NEWS CAMPAIGN NEWS Archbishops ‘Coming Home’ CPRE was one of the organisations who News round-up endorsed a February Keeping you on top of the latest relevant issues report from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Coming Home called for A vision for better planning a number of reforms to planning and housing he government should rethink of affordable and social homes.