Key recommendations
- All Green Belt boundaries should be reviewed, starting urgently with areas that do not have adequate land supply for the next ten years to meet known population requirements.
- Give early release to Green Belt land in the Birmingham, Manchester, and London areas that are within walking distance (roughly 800 metres) of rail or underground stations.
- Increase private sector initiatives, which may include village expansion schemes or building new communities that are embedded into the area’s Development Plan (also known as ‘Pink Planning’).
- Compulsory purchase procedures could be reversed and instigated by the private sector, to encourage Disposal Orders to release public land for the purpose of building.
Commenting on the report, co-author Keith Boyfield said:
“Politicians are fond of talking about how to tackle our alarming housing crisis – yet little is delivered.
“This new report shows how redundant public sector land can be released to meet this pressing need. The Green Belt – which has more than doubled in size since 1979 – can be used to better house our rapidly rising population, and by adopting of a bottom-up, community-sensitive approach, we can create new villages and towns that people will clamour to live and work in.”
Commenting on the report, co-author Robert Wickham said:
‘This paper shows how in a post-Brexit world, more homes can be created by a general presumption in favour of development, enabling communities and entrepreneurs to work together.
“The creation of choice for consumers will improve the quality of development to the benefit of urban and rural areas.”
Notes to editors:
For media enquiries please contact Kate Andrews, Associate Director: kandrews@iea.org.uk
020 7799 8925 or 07476 915 072
To download the IEA’s paper ‘Delivering More Homes: Radical action to unlock the system’, click here.
Co-author Keith Boyfield an economist, a Fellow at the IEA, and the author of over one hundred publications on public policy and planning issues, economic development and regulatory policy.
Co-author Dr Robert Wickham is a chartered surveyor and chartered town planner, and is currently a research fellow at Anglia Ruskin University.
For more IEA research on housing, click here.
To download the winning entry of the IEA’s 2018 Breakthrough Prize – outlining a free-market policy to solve the UK’s housing crisis – click here.
The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems and seeks to provide analysis in order to improve the public understanding of economics.
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