Tag: grey belt

Village Legal

What is a village? As a result of the government’s latest green belt planning practice guidance (see my 2 March 2025 blog post Colouring In The Grey Belt: The PPG) the answer to that question has practical policy consequences. When judging whether land is grey belt:

  • in assessing the extent to which the site strongly contributes to green belt purpose (a), to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas, the guidance states categorically: “Villages should not be considered large built up areas”.
  • in assessing the extent to which the site strongly contributes to green belt purpose (b), to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another, the guidance states categorically: “This purpose relates to the merging of towns, not villages.”

So if you have land on the edge of a village, the role that the land plays in separating that village from another village, or from a town, or in preventing the settlements from merging with one another, is irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether it is grey belt. Of course any potential development would have to meet other criteria, such as whether the location is “in a location that is or can be made sustainable”, but the distinction between town and village is now profound, for the purposes of applying green belt policy, both at local plan making stage and in determining planning applications and appeals.

Guess what, there is no definition of “village” in the glossary to the NPPF or indeed in national planning practice guidance. The issue is not entirely new given that one of the exceptions to development in the green belt being inappropriate has for many years been “limited infilling in villages” (now NPPF paragraph 154 (e)) but that was a relatively narrow point.

Because I live an interesting life, I participated this week in some lively WhatsApp debate on the issue (yes I’m looking at you, you and you others at this point). Someone pointed to the House of Commons Library’s research briefing City & Town Classification of Constituencies & Local Authorities (21 June 2018). Whilst interesting, this just deepened the mystery. It explains that according to an adjusted version of a taxonomy developed by the Centre for Towns, its classification (which is for wider public policy statistical purposes) was as follows:

12 Core Cities: twelve major population and economic centres (e.g. London, Glasgow, Sheffield)

24 Other Cities: other settlements with a population of more than 175,000 (e.g. Leicester, Portsmouth, Aberdeen)

119 Large Towns: settlements with a population between 60,000 and 174,999 (e.g. Warrington, Hemel Hempstead, Farnborough)

270 Medium Towns: settlements with a population between 25,000 and 59,999 (e.g. Gravesend, Jarrow, Exmouth)

674 Small Towns: settlements with a population between 7,500 and 24,999 (e.g. Falmouth, New Romney, Holbeach)

6,116 Villages and small communities: settlements with a population of less than 7,500 (e.g. Chapel-en-le-Frith, Cottenham, Menai Bridge)

But then the paper goes on to explain:

“This classification isn’t intended to resolve long-standing disputes about which settlements deserve to be called ‘cities’, ‘towns’, or ‘villages’. In fact, it takes no account of the ceremonial definition of ‘city’, using the term only as a way to identify larger settlements. For instance, St Albans is identified as a ‘large town’ here because its population is 86,000 – even though it has city status. Luton, on the other hand, doesn’t have city status, but is classified here as an ‘Other City’ because its population is 225,000.

The precise division between ‘large’, ‘medium’ and ‘small’ towns is, to a large extent, subjective.”

Hmm. So that doesn’t help. By coincidence I then saw a blog post on Bluesky posted by the Urban History Group, What is a town? It starts: “What exactly is a town? The answer to this question has been debated for many decades by medieval historians.” Oh no, many decades is no good. The short piece refers to the definitional uncertainty as between small towns and large villages – resonating with the equivalent uncertainty that there is in our modern planning world. Most local plans will have a table settling out the area’s settlement hierarchy, eg

Tier 1 – city/large town

Tier 2 – town

Tier 3 – small town

Tier 4 – large village

Tier 5 – medium sized village

Tier 6 – green belt village

Tier 7 – green belt hamlet

The distinction between ”small town” and “large village” is going to come under additional scrutiny, but without any government guidance, that I am aware of, as to the criteria to be applied in drawing that distinction.

I did have a brief, far from comprehensive, look at planning appeal decisions. There was one dating from 2019 for instance (APP/B3438/W/18/3211000) which revolved around whether the proposal was “limited infilling in a village” or in fact just a hamlet. The inspector resorted to a dictionary:

“The main parties dispute whether Ridgeway is a village or a hamlet.  This has consequences in terms of whether the scheme accords with Framework paragraph 145 e).  The Oxford Dictionary defines a village as a group of houses and associated buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, situated in a rural area.  It defines a hamlet as a small settlement, generally one smaller than a village, and strictly (in Britain) one without a Church.  While a church may have once existed in Ridgeway, there is no church there now as it has been replaced by a dwelling known as Chapel House.  There are also no other associated buildings in Ridgeway that would, in my judgement, mean that Ridgeway is anything more than a hamlet.  The proposal does not accord with the exception in Framework paragraph [(now) paragraph 154(e)].

I think we are going to need some more specific guidance than dictionaries can provide. One WhatsApp response proposes an “if it has a Greggs it isn’t a village” test. I suppose that is a start but I am sure you can do better?

Whilst I’m being an annoying pedant, I would also like separately to draw attention to an inaccuracy in the NPPF glossary’s definition of “major development”:

The definition of “major development” in Article 2 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 is as follows:

“major development” means development which involves one or more of the following—

(a) the winning and working of minerals or the use of land for mineral-working deposits;

(b) waste development;

(c) the provision of dwellinghouses where—

(i) the number of dwellinghouses to be provided is 10 or more; or

(ii) the development is to be carried out on a site having an area of 0.5 hectares or more and it is not known whether the development falls within sub-paragraph (c)(i);

(d) the provision of a building or buildings where the floor space to be created by the development is 1,000 square metres or more; or

(e) development carried out on a site having an area of 1 hectare or more;

The definition of “major development” in the NPPF glossary is:

“For housing, development where 10 or more homes will be provided, or the site has an area of 0.5 hectares or more. For non-residential development it means additional floorspace of 1,000m2 or more, or a site of 1 hectare or more, or as otherwise provided in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015.”

The green belt “golden rules” only apply to “major development”. What if you have a scheme of say nine units on a site of between 0.5 and 1 hectares? Under the Development Management Procedure Order that is not major development. But under the glossary, because it has imprecisely summarised the definition in the Order, it would seem to be. Error?

What a time to be a planning lawyer.

NB Back on the main theme of this blog post: shortly after we announced we were setting up our new law firm eight or so years ago, Peter Village KC called me to say that Village Legal would have been such a better name. Maybe so.

Simon Ricketts, 23 March 2025

Personal views, et cetera

It Was The “Rushed And Incoherent” Jibe That Got Me

The House of Lords Built Environment Committee published its conclusions from its inquiry on grey belt on 5 February 2025, by way of a letter from Lord Moylan (its chair until 30 January 2025 since when he has been succeeded by Lord Gascoigne).

The stated purpose of the inquiry, which was commenced in September 2024, was to “to gain a better understanding of what Grey Belt land is, how it can contribute to housing targets and what sustainable Grey Belt development looks like.”

Obviously, this was in the context of the 30 July 2024 draft revised NPPF which introduced the “grey belt” concept, the idea having been specifically part of the Labour Party’s June 2024 manifesto:

“Labour is committed to preserving the green belt which has served England’s towns and cities well over many decades. Under the Conservatives, greenbelt land is regularly released for development but haphazardly and often for speculative housebuilding. Without changing its purpose or general extent, Labour will take a more strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places. The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised and we will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature.”

The party had of course been floating the proposal well before that (eg my 20 April 2024 blog post Labour’s Green Belt Grey Areas/Sadiq Khan’s London Manifesto).

The proposals in the draft July NPPF have since been refined but I had summarised them in my 2 August 2024 blog post 50 Shades of Grey Belt. The final version of the NPPF was of course published on 12 December 2024.  Links to the various relevant documents are set out in my 14 December 2024 blog post I Love It When A National Planning Policy Framework Comes Together and Zack Simons posted a brilliantly readable blog post if you don’t simply want to read section 13 of the NPPF and the definition of “grey belt” contained in its glossary.

We still await updated planning practice guidance green belt and on the identification of grey belt (expected this month) and on viability assessment (relevant to the application of the so-called green belt golden rules).

The Built Environment Committee inquiry was an important opportunity to review the “grey belt” refinement to existing green belt policy, in the context of government’s objective: (quoting from that manifesto) to “get Britain building again, creating jobs across England, with 1.5 million new homes over the … parliament” whilst not changing the “purpose or general extent” of green belt. This was a chance to recommend some improvements to its formulation and operation.

In my view that opportunity was missed, in favour of some political point scoring (Labour peers being in a minority on the Committee). Here are the Committee’s main conclusions:

“The fact that the NPPF has been finalised at the same time as so many other complementary and interconnected policies are being developed raises significant concerns about the extent to which we can be confident that any of the individual policies contained within the NPPF will be successful. This is particularly the case for grey belt land, the benefits of which we now believe will be marginal, at best. Moreover, in the absence of any clear understanding of how the success of the policy will be measured or monitored, we cannot see how the policy can be implemented or developed in a robust and coherent way.

Ultimately, our assessment is that the grey belt policy has been implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner, and we do not believe that it is likely to have any significant or lasting impact on planning decision-making or on achieving your target of 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament.”

Surely any proper examination of the issues should have started with a reflection on the operation of green belt policy itself prior to the introduction of the grey belt concept; its ad hoc, unplanned, growth both in extent and purposes and its incoherence in terms of the public’s conception of it as serving more than as a means of containing urban growth but as an indicator of environmental or landscape quality. That examination could have considered the subjective and politised nature of the existing tests in policy – the requirement for “exceptional circumstances” to justify release by way of local plans and “very special circumstances” to justify planning permission for so called inappropriate development.

Against that background and the Government’s various commitments flowing from that manifesto (including the reintroduction of strategic planning) it is a bit rich for the Committee to be complaining at the pace and extent of policy change! Whether you support individual policies or not, many will regard the business-like and speedy delivery by MHCLG, largely without surprises or u-turns, of what was promised as a breath of fresh air after previous regimes (remembering the instant dismantling by Eric Pickles in 2010 of regional planning with nothing in its place) or the constant yo-yoing of recent years: The 2020 Planning White Paper left to wither on the vine, followed by the Gove-led, changed priorities, December 2022 draft NPPF, only finalised a full twelve months later (despite Spring 2023 having been the promised publication date). And were any of the policy changes “robust and coherent”? Hmm.

Yes we still do not have a fully coherent system for determining what land should be released from the green belt, but I would argue that we now have more coherence than simply relying on those “exceptional circumstances” and “very special circumstances” tests. We’re also dealing with revisions to a policy which itself is incoherent, within a planning system which is incoherent. Against a pressing national need for homes and economic development, I suppose the choice is between “rushed and incoherent” or “delayed and incoherent”; you takes your choice.

It seems that part of the Committee’s thinking as to why the concept of “grey belt” is “largely redundant” (to use its own words) is that “more significant changes to other aspects of the NPPF…will be likely to result in Green Belt land being released through existing channels instead”, by way of green belt reviews via local plans and in due course spatial development strategies. If that turns out to be the case in the longer term, that is surely a good outcome. But the harder edged function of the concept in the meantime is to enable a consenting outlet that is not dependent on the much more uncertain “very special circumstances” test, where there is need that is not being accommodated in accordance with up to date plans and where delivery is falling short.

One only has to see (James Maurici KC’s LinkedIn posts are my usual source but you will no doubt have your own) the stream of appeal decision letters emanating from the Planning Inspectorate to have a sense of how often schemes are being promoted at present on the basis that they fall within the definition of “grey belt”, with “very special circumstances” as the fall-back, with many of those appeals being allowed. Surely, this has been exactly the sort of policy intervention that has been needed, albeit of course no overall panacea.

I have one final point to make in what has turned out to be a mini-rant, for which apologies (and of course I look forward to the happy sound of my phone buzzing as your rebuttal comments come in). I corrected Lord Moylan when I gave evidence to the Committee on 29 October 2024 and to my surprise at the time he appeared to be under the assumption that grey belt policy is only relevant to residential development. This was the exchange:

“The Chair:  Take an old abandoned industrial site inside the green belt. There could be strong arguments that a proper and effective use would be as a new industrial site. This policy is focused entirely on housing. Are you saying that you could still apply for that to be a new industrial site, but you would have to use the very special circumstances route to do so; grey belt simply would not apply to that?

Simon Ricketts: No. In fact, grey belt applies to commercial development as well as to residential development. It is a great problem with discussion about the planning system at the moment that everything is about housing. Allowing for logistics, industrial, life sciences and other development is just as important. The draft policy says that “housing, commercial and other development in the Green Belt should not be regarded as inappropriate where … “, and then sets out the criteria for grey belt that I have previously indicated.

There is a problem in that, if you are bringing forward housing development, it is easy to see whether there is an unmet housing need, because you apply the methodology that is in the public domain. However, in relation to commercial development, you have to show that “there is a demonstrable need for land to be released for development of local, regional or national importance”. There is no real guidance as to what the methodology would be for demonstrating that.

The Chair: That is under the very special circumstances test, or under the grey-belt test.

Simon Ricketts: Under the grey-belt test, if you consider that there is an unmet need for logistics development in your area and there is a piece of green belt that you consider to be grey belt because it makes a limited contribution to the purposes of the green belt, you can apply for planning permission if you can show that there is a demonstrable need for that land to be released for that form of development. That is inevitably more complicated than when you are dealing with housing development, because you will need to arrive at the right methodology.

The Chair: But it would be doable.

Simon Ricketts: Yes, absolutely.

The Chair: So it is perfectly possible that the grey-belt route could be used for non-housing development.

Simon Ricketts: Yes.”

Notwithstanding this exchange, is there anything in his letter to the Secretary of State which makes any reference whatsoever about anything other than housing? Nope.

 Simon Ricketts, 8 February 2025

Personal views, et cetera

I realised I’m currently wearing just the right t-shirt this morning.