Sir – The CPRE analysis of the Green Belt is simply wrong (Report, September 22). In the Coalition Agreement the Government stated in its first weeks in office its commitment to maintaining national Green Belt protection. Our policy in the draft National Planning Policy Framework continues this strong protection.
The Government’s reforms of planning strengthen the purpose of the Green Belt which is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open providing a green lung around towns and cities.
The essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness. The Framework is clear that Green Belt boundaries, as now, should only be re-considered when a Local Plan is being prepared or reviewed, and with the intention of providing permanence to Green Belt boundaries in the long term. So it is emphatically not the case that the status of any villages would change just because the Framework is introduced.
The new planning rules are about ensuring Green Belt designation is used for its intended purpose (to protect openness). Villages can still also be protected by using other means such as conservation area designations.
In addition, villages can be protected through policies in the Local Plan and through the new Neighbourhood Plans which communities may wish to produce for their own areas. South Oxfordshire District Council, in the area of which lies the majority of the villages listed by CPRE, has, for example, maintained a vigorous campaign over many years to protect the Oxford Green Belt.
The proposed abolition of Labour’s unpopular Regional Strategies, through the Localism Bill, will remove top-down pressure on councils to review the extent of their Green Belt which was likely to affect Oxfordshire. In addition our new draft planning policy on traveller sites explicitly increases protection for the Green Belt and open countryside. We are very happy collectively to meet CPRE to explain why its analysis is so flawed.
Tony Baldry, MP for Banbury
Nicola Blackwood, MP for Oxford West & Abingdon
Ed Vaizey, MP for Wantage
John Howell, MP for Henley
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