Why Green Belt land development is key to meeting the UK's growing housing demand

For many people, the next step after city living is not escape, but balance.

More space. A garden. A family home. Still close enough to work, culture, friends, and opportunity.

In most successful countries, that transition is exactly what suburbs are for. In England, however, it is where ambition collides head-on with policy.

The Green Belt has quietly but decisively severed the link between cities and their natural patterns of growth. It has turned the simple desire for space and stability into a zero-sum game, forcing households either to stay cramped within urban cores or to leap far beyond them into long commutes and disconnected lives.

This is not a quirk of geography. It is the outcome of a planning system that treats containment as an end in itself.

At the same time, the country is facing a housing shortage of a scale that can no longer be dismissed as cyclical or temporary. The population continues to grow faster than homes are delivered, and the places under the greatest pressure are also the places where supply is most tightly constrained.

The outcome is entirely predictable. Prices rise, choice shrinks, and housing becomes a source of stress rather than security.

Despite the way it is often presented, the Green Belt is not a continuous expanse of protected countryside, nor is it a measure of environmental quality.

It is a policy designation drawn around towns and cities, not a reflection of land quality, within which development is tightly restricted regardless of the condition, use, or value of the land itself. In doing so, it holds enormous influence over where homes may be built, and where they may not.

That influence matters because the Green Belt now sits at the centre of the housing crisis itself, yet is still widely misunderstood. Councils routinely cite it as a reason for refusal. Communities are told it is untouchable. And any discussion of change is framed as a threat, rather than an opportunity to plan more intelligently.

In this article, we set out why the Green Belt has become one of the core drivers of housing scarcity in England. We explain what it is, what it was designed to do, how the law treats it, and why opposition to development so often rests on misconception rather than evidence. Only once that foundation is clear does the wider housing debate begin to make sense.

For decades, homeownership has been the clearest marker of "making it" in Britain. But that ladder is now pulling away, not just from younger households, but from working adults who should, by any reasonable measure, be able to buy. When housing costs absorb the bulk of people's disposable income, life shrinks. Commutes get longer, families live further apart, and communities become less stable.

According to the Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) Broken Ladder 3, the barriers are no longer marginal. They are structural. In England, first-time buyers would need to save 50% of their discretionary income for around nine years just to build a typical deposit. In London and the South East, that rises to 13 years or more. Even after rent and bills, deposits are still routinely more than 400% of remaining income.

This is not a mystery. It is the result of long-term supply failure, sustained over decades, colliding with population growth and entrenched affordability pressures.

The scale of that failure is now measurable in comparative terms. According to the Centre for Policy Studies' analysis, the UK has just 446 homes per 1,000 people, the second worst rate among comparable European countries. Against a weighted European average of 542 homes per 1,000, the national deficit now stands at approximately 6.5 million homes, with England alone accounting for 5.85 million of that gap.

At current delivery rates and projected migration, the UK will not reach the European average until 2115. That is not a typo. It is the logical endpoint of a system that treats constraint as strategy.

And the pressure is only increasing. The UK population is projected to pass 70 million by mid-2026, adding further demand to an already constrained system. Government ambitions for housing delivery sit at around 300,000 homes per year. Yet the supply pipeline is moving decisively in the opposite direction.

HBF’s Housing Pipeline Q3 2025 evidence is stark. In Great Britain, the number of residential units approved fell to 45,075 in Q3 2025, 34% down on Q3 2024, and the lowest quarterly total since 2012. Total approvals for the first nine months of 2025 were 146,798, 25% lower than the same period a year earlier.

In simple terms, even consented supply is drying up, which means fewer homes being built tomorrow.

London shows what happens when local delivery collapses under policy friction and viability strain. According to HBF’s Mind the Gap, London delivered only 32,000 new homes in 2023/24, down 9% year on year.

The new Standard Method points to a requirement of 88,000 homes a year, a scale of uplift that simply will not happen under business-as-usual planning and development conditions.

The most recent data confirms just how far delivery has collapsed. According to the Centre for Policy Studies' analysis of official figures, only 4,170 homes were started in the capital in 2024/25 — a 72% fall on the previous year and less than 5% of the 88,000-home annual target.

London is now building at less than a quarter of the rate of the rest of England. The consultancy Molior predicts that London will complete fewer than 10,000 homes in both 2027 and 2028, a level of delivery not seen since before 1946. The pipeline is not just constrained. In fact, it is emptying.

This is why the housing crisis is “national” only in its consequences, but local in its causes.

Too often, the places with the highest demand and the greatest affordability pressures are the very places that ration supply the hardest. London needs 88,000 homes a year and is delivering under 5,000. That is not a capacity problem. It is a choice.

The disconnect is not accidental. It is baked into a planning culture that rewards delay, over-politicises technical judgement, and treats constraint as a reason to avoid delivery rather than a framework to plan better. Green Belt has become the most powerful expression of that instinct, a line on a map that too often ends the conversation before it begins.

If we want a country where people can live near their work, put down roots, and move through life stages without being financially crushed by housing, we need a fundamental reset. Not a loosening of standards, but a reordering of priorities. A planning system that is pro-homes, pro-quality, and honest about trade-offs.

One that treats Green Belt reform not as betrayal, but as the responsible next step where land performs poorly against its stated purposes and where sustainable, infrastructure-led growth is the better outcome.

The alternative is to keep doing what we have been doing. And we already know where that leads.

We know that one of the core reasons the UK faces a dangerous housing shortage is the Green Belt. But to understand why it drives prices and restricts supply so powerfully, we first need to be clear about what the Green Belt actually is.

From the name alone, most people picture rolling hills and protected countryside. That image is powerful, but it is misleading. The Green Belt is not a landscape designation and it was never designed to be one.

At its core, the Green Belt is a planning policy tool for controlling urban growth. It exists to serve five specific purposes, including checking the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas and preventing neighbouring towns from merging into one another.

In the post-war period, it largely achieved that strategic separation. The method, however, was blunt. Fixed rings were drawn around towns and cities, and land inside those rings became subject to a blanket constraint.

That distinction matters.

Land becomes Green Belt not because of biodiversity, landscape quality, public access or environmental importance, but because of where it sits on the map. Geography, not merit, determines protection. That is why intensive farmland, derelict plots, surface car parks, and former industrial land may all sit within the Green Belt, while genuinely valuable landscapes outside it may have no Green Belt designation at all.

It is also why the public debate so often becomes confused. Even if the Green Belt were removed tomorrow, England’s strongest environmental protections would still remain firmly in place.

Designations such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest are evidence-led and focused on actual ecological and landscape value. Many also promote public access. The issue, then, is not that England lacks environmental protection. It is that the Green Belt performs a different function entirely, yet is repeatedly treated in public debate under a persistent misconception as if it were a nature designation.

Before we go any further, here’s a short clip from my Sky News interview where I address the misunderstanding that sits behind almost every Green Belt argument. I explain why the term is so often misused, what Grey Belt is intended to do under the reformed framework, and why local refusals driven by perception are frequently corrected later on appeal once the policy tests and evidence are applied properly.

Once you see the Green Belt for what it really is, the debate changes. The question is not whether we should “build on the Green Belt” as if every hectare performs the same role. The real question is which land is genuinely doing the job the Green Belt was created to do, and which land is simply locked up by a boundary line despite being degraded, previously developed or functionally urban.

That is exactly where the advantages and disadvantages become real rather than ideological.

Blanket protection does not just stop sensible growth. It pushes development outward, lengthens commutes, increases emissions, and concentrates competition for homes into smaller and smaller pockets. The result is higher prices. Targeted release in sustainable locations, by contrast, may deliver homes without sacrificing what we actually value.

This matters because the country has changed profoundly since the Green Belt was first drawn. Many parts of London and other high-demand cities are already dense, and further intensification is increasingly constrained by heritage, infrastructure capacity, and liveability. Cities cannot absorb unlimited growth within fixed boundaries.

That is why the draft NPPF 2025 signals a shift from blanket ideology to targeted, evidence-led change, with clearer support for releasing the lowest-value Grey Belt land in sustainable locations where need is proven. The direction is clear, but the outcome will depend on delivery. If plan-making, infrastructure and decision-taking do not keep pace, the Green Belt will continue to act as a scarcity valve and keep upward pressure on housing prices for the foreseeable future.

Let’s be clear about one thing from the start. We are not anti–green space. In fact, we want more of it.

More parks people can actually use. More trees, nature corridors, and better-quality public realm in and around our cities. The problem is that the Green Belt is widely assumed to deliver those outcomes by default. In reality, it is a planning line on a map. It stops development, but it does not guarantee environmental quality, biodiversity, or public access.

To be fair, some parts of the Green Belt do what they were intended to do. They serve the Green Belt's primary purposes and help prevent settlements from merging and contain outward sprawl.

The problem begins when we pretend every hectare performs that role equally. Green Belt land is protected because of where it sits, not because of what it is.

And when demand for homes rises in cities, that pressure does not disappear just because the edge is constrained. It shifts. Lock up well-connected edge-of-town land and development simply jumps over it.

London illustrates this failure in sharp relief. The Centre for Policy Studies' research shows the capital has just 427 homes per 1,000 residents, implying a shortage of around 1.1 million homes against the European benchmark and that figure does not account for suppressed demand from households priced out entirely.

The economic cost is equally stark: the median London worker earns 17% more than the UK median, but once housing costs are deducted, they are actually 3% worse off. The Green Belt boundary is not just a planning line. It is functioning as a wage ceiling.

The result is a distorted pattern of growth. Instead of delivering sensible suburban expansion close to jobs, schools, and transport, people are pushed further out, into longer commutes and higher car dependency. That is not successful planning. It is what happens when a rigid boundary substitutes for strategy.

There is also a contradiction at the heart of the debate.

One of the main arguments for defending the Green Belt is environmental protection. Yet forcing people to live further from where they work increases travel distances, car use, and emissions. The Mayor of London has acknowledged this himself, noting that large parts of London’s Green Belt are poorly maintained, rarely used, and offer limited public access. Only around 13% of it is made up of parks and land the public can actually enjoy.

The idea that the Green Belt is all rolling hills and protected countryside simply does not hold up. Figures widely cited in London’s Green Belt debate show that around 59% is agricultural land, much of it intensively farmed and privately owned. Golf courses alone account for about 7% of the area, roughly 2,500 hectares. Whatever your view on development, that is not the picture most people have in mind when they hear the term “Green Belt”.

Scarcity always has consequences. My research into the impact of the Green Belt on housing prices shows that long-term land constraints have driven values far beyond what population change can explain. Between 1951 and 2011, London’s population was broadly flat, yet real house prices increased by more than 460%. That gap reflects demand colliding with a planning system that refused to adapt.

The result is a housing ladder that no longer works. Zoopla’s first-time buyer analysis shows that the average deposit in London now sits at around £144,500. That is not a stepping stone. It is a wall. And as the Home Builders Federation’s latest Housing Pipeline data makes clear, the number of homes coming through the planning system is falling, not rising.

None of this means the Green Belt should be swept away. It means we need to stop treating it as untouchable.

Protect the land that genuinely performs a strategic or environmental role. Improve what is degraded. And be honest about the lowest-value, best-connected sites where development could deliver homes, infrastructure, and new green space together. If the Green Belt continues to be treated as a single, uniform idea, scarcity will remain built into the system.

Local planning authorities are responsible for defining Green Belt boundaries through their local plans, and those boundaries are not fixed forever. These Green Belt boundaries meant to be reviewed as part of plan-making when housing need, sustainability, and evidence demand it.

In reality, this is rarely how the policy is applied. Green Belt boundaries have often been treated as politically untouchable rather than as planning tools. That reluctance to review or adjust them has become one of the structural reasons housing supply has failed to keep pace with demand.

The same dynamic appears at application stage. When proposals come forward on individual sites, councils frequently face strong local opposition and political pressure. In response, they often take the safer route and refuse, effectively deferring the difficult judgement.

In many cases, it is the Planning Inspectorate that is left to apply the policy tests properly and weigh the evidence at appeal. This is why, on well-argued Green Belt and Grey Belt appeals, decisions are often overturned once inspectors assess the proposals against the framework rather than local sentiment.

It is important to be clear about one thing. Building on the Green Belt is not outright banned. But it is deliberately difficult. Under the National Planning Policy Framework, most forms of new development are defined as “inappropriate” unless they fall within a narrow list of Green Belt exceptions or are justified by very special circumstances.

What changes with the draft NPPF 2025 is not the removal of protection, but a clearer distinction between land that genuinely performs Green Belt functions and land that does not. This is where the concept of Grey Belt becomes critical.

Local authorities are now encouraged to identify previously developed, degraded, or poorly performing Green Belt land in sustainable locations, particularly where housing need is acute and realistic alternatives are limited.

The effect is a shift in judgement. The focus moves away from defending boundaries at all costs and towards evidence-led decision-making. The central question is no longer simply whether land sits within the Green Belt, but whether continued restriction is justified based on the function that land actually performs.

That shift should not be misunderstood. Development does not suddenly become easy. Even on Grey Belt land, proposals are still expected to be well located, supported by infrastructure, and capable of delivering clear public benefits. But decision-makers are increasingly expected to engage with evidence rather than rely on designation alone.

Meanwhile, the traditional exceptions remain. Limited infilling, redevelopment of previously developed land, and certain forms of rural development still apply. However, these tools have long been imperfect. Previously developed land excludes most agricultural buildings, and because housing consistently delivers higher land values than employment or rural uses, the system can unintentionally undermine rural businesses while claiming to protect them.

Taken together, the message is clear. The draft NPPF 2025 is an acknowledgement that the status quo is not working. Housing need, sustainability, and affordability are expected to carry real weight in planning decisions, and Green Belt policy is to be applied with judgement rather than ideology.

In short, the law has not suddenly become permissive. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. Green Belt policy is being rebalanced, with a shift from blanket restraint towards targeted, evidence-led release where land performs poorly, locations are sustainable, and the public interest is served.

Whether that shift translates into real delivery will depend on how confidently local authorities use the tools the policy is now beginning to give them. It will also depend on what happens after planning permission is granted.

Because even where Green Belt or Grey Belt release is secured, regulatory barriers threaten to choke delivery before a single foundation is dug. According to the Centre for Policy Studies' research, the Building Safety Regulator has rejected 69% of Gateway 2 applications, with 92% of submitted buildings still awaiting approval and median waiting times now exceeding 36 weeks. For buildings between 18 and 50 metres — exactly the mid-rise typologies suited to edge-of-settlement growth — the Government's own impact assessment found that second staircase requirements impose costs outweighing benefits by more than 1,200 to 1.

Allocating land is only half the battle. The consenting and regulatory regime must keep pace, or the homes simply will not get built. Planning reform without delivery reform is just a slower route to the same failure.

Housing pressure in England is most acute in and around its towns and cities, where demand and opportunity overlap. These are the places where jobs, services, and infrastructure are concentrated. Yet they are also the places where land supply is most tightly constrained. In many cases, that constraint is defined by the Green Belt boundary.

As urban areas have evolved, the easy options for intensification have narrowed. Heritage assets, infrastructure capacity, and liveability place real limits on how much growth cities can absorb internally. So the next question becomes unavoidable. If we cannot meet need entirely within existing urban footprints, where should growth go next?

This is where edge-of-settlement land matters. When well-connected sites on the edge of towns and cities are ruled out by default, the planning system loses some of its most practical, deliverable options.

Brownfield land plays an important role, and it should continue to be prioritised. But it is not an endless reserve. Its capacity is finite and unevenly distributed. Much of what is counted as brownfield is already in use, already allocated, or burdened by remediation costs and viability challenges. In high-demand areas, particularly London and the South East, much of the brownfield pipeline is already spoken for.

The viability position has deteriorated sharply, and the numbers explain why delivery is stalling even on consented sites. According to the Centre for Policy Studies' analysis, construction costs rose by 21% between 2021 and 2023, while elevated interest rates have squeezed margins on complex, capital-intensive brownfield schemes.

New Molior data paints an even bleaker picture: development costs are now so high that it is unviable to build in half of London even if the land were provided for free. This is not a speculative claim — the pipeline data confirms that approvals are falling and starts are collapsing.

The brownfield-first mantra, however well-intentioned, cannot deliver at scale when the economics no longer work. Treating it as the sole answer simply postpones the harder decisions.

The real barrier is rarely technical. It is political.

The Green Belt has become a symbol rather than a policy tool, which makes boundary review feel like retreat rather than responsible planning. That leaves local authorities squeezed between acute housing need and a designation that is often treated as non-negotiable, regardless of how individual parcels of land actually perform.

The draft NPPF 2025 begins to loosen that impasse. It does not remove protection, but it gives clearer support for distinguishing between land that genuinely serves Green Belt purposes and land that does not. The emphasis shifts towards evidence, sustainability, and outcomes rather than blanket restraint. That matters because it gives councils policy cover they have long lacked to make difficult but necessary decisions.

Ultimately, where land is well located, performs poorly against Green Belt purposes, and is capable of supporting infrastructure-led development, continued restriction increasingly needs to be justified rather than assumed. Whether this translates into real delivery will depend on how confidently local authorities use the emerging framework and whether plan-making keeps pace with the scale of need.

The Green Belt began as a pragmatic response to post-war growth. Over time, it has hardened into something else. A blunt instrument. A political shield. A scarcity machine.

The UK’s housing crisis is not the result of a lack of effort by builders, planners, or communities. It is the result of a system that refuses to adapt to change. Brownfield land alone will not fix it. Tweaks around the edges will not fix it.

What is needed now is honesty.

Not all Green Belt land is precious. Not all of it is green. And not all of it is doing the job it was created to do. Reform does not mean paving over the countryside. It means planning properly. It means protecting what genuinely matters, improving what has been neglected, and using the lowest-value land to meet the most pressing social need of our time.

Because most people live in towns and cities, where land is already scarce and intensification is increasingly constrained by heritage, infrastructure capacity, and liveability. If we want to deliver the homes people actually need, growth has to happen somewhere. Well-located Green Belt land, particularly at the edge of existing settlements, is often the most logical place.

This is not about pushing more homes into already crowded urban cores. It is about enabling sensible, planned expansion where infrastructure already exists, or where it can be delivered efficiently. Without that option, demand does not disappear. It simply gets displaced further and further out, with longer commutes, higher emissions, and even greater pressure on affordability.

The Green Belt could play a central role in the solution. But only if we stop treating it as untouchable, and start treating it as a planning tool again.

The Green Belt is one of the most contentious and misunderstood pieces of planning policy in England and it’s a topic we at Urbanist Architecture have a lot of experience working with. For this reason, we decided to pool our learnings and pen a book delving deep into the Green Belt from every possible angle.

‘Green Light to Green Belt Developments’ investigates the policy's biggest winners and losers, and explores its connections to climate change and the housing crisis, as well as what the future might hold, particularly now a new Labour government is in power. It also looks at the history of the policy and how it’s managed to endure while other policies have evolved and adapted with the times. Of course, it also identifies the exceptions and circumstances that exist for permitting development in the Green Belt, so you can better your chances of gaining planning permission.

We’ve written this book for anyone seeking a more rounded understanding of one of England's most debated urban planning issues, making it accessible to both industry professionals and the general public.

Whether you are a landowner in the Green Belt wishing to understand the potential for land value uplift or a developer planning to build new homes in the Green Belt, this book is an essential read. Order your copy now.