Sir – Your correspondents’ comments on planning and the Green Belt (Letters, September 25) call for a response.

 

It is too easy to blame the Green Belt for high house prices which are a consequence, amongst other things, of a growing demand for properties from people moving to Oxford, especially from London, demand from overseas investors, and the need for student accommodation.

 

As Peter Thompson acknowledges, the Green Belt is intended to protect the setting of Oxford, but it also protects the character of the historic city centre which by its nature cannot be expanded or comprehensively redeveloped and is likely to be put under intolerable pressure if expansion on the edge of the city is not restricted. One only has to think of Oxford’s never-ending traffic problems to appreciate this.

 

The claim that the Green Belt does not make the land enjoyable for the public is hard to appreciate when one thinks of the parks and sports fields, the footpaths (Oxford Green Belt Way), river banks and woodlands that it has helped preserve for recreational use. My experience of the Green Belt is not of industrial farming but of smaller units now diversifying into places where you can pick fruit, take the kids to see animals, and generally enjoy the countryside without having to drive huge distances to do so.

 

Henry Brougham asks us to have faith in the planning system, but planning controls have been significantly weakened in recent years with “the presumption in favour of sustainable development”, whilst strategic planning has been replaced by the wishes of the business-led and unelected Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). Regional and county-wide co-ordination has been swept aside in favour of studies such as the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA), produced by property consultants with no opportunity for public consultation or review.

 

Amongst what is left from the unpicking of all these planning controls, the Green Belt remains our one enduring bulwark against mounting development pressures and the unreasonable demands being placed on Oxford’s precious countryside.

 

Ian Scargill, Chairman, Oxford Green Belt Network