The Planning Inspector’s report on the Mayor’s new London Plan is proposing that Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land protections are weakened. But evidence shows we don’t need to build on our precious protected land and there are more socially and environmentally sustainable options.

Please take 2 minutes to write to Sadiq Khan by emailing mayor@london.gov.uk to ask him to stand firm on protecting Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land (MOL). CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) has set out some suggested wording below. 

Thank you all very much. Together we are Stronger!

Dear Mayor,

Please stand firm – and protect London’s Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land

I am very concerned about elements of the Inspectors Report on your draft London Plan and urge you to stand firm and protect the Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land (MOL).  Evidence shows that developing in London’s Green Belt will undermine environmental and social goals:

·         It will increase car-dependency and traffic congestion

·         It will be low-density, high carbon and land-hungry, and housing will be unaffordable

There are much better options: build attractive, ‘car-free’ development within the urban footprint, serviced by public transport. Inefficiently-used space and run-down sites can be transformed into places people want to live, redeveloped at appropriate density, incorporating affordable housing and enabling people to live within walking distance of local amenities.

Protection must mean just that: developers see weakening of Green Belt and MOL protection as an opportunity for short term financial gain.  It drives land speculation: land changes hands and pressure increases to develop it, as is already happening with the garden centres in Crews Hill in Enfield, for example.

I therefore strongly object to the following Planning Inspectorate Panel Recommendations:

·         (PR) 36 which calls for modifications to Policy G2. This would undermine your attempts to secure the effective protection of Green Belt which national policy is failing to provide.

·         (PRs) 30 and 31 to allow industrial development in the Green Belt. Reviewing Green Belt as proposed by the Inspectors would undermine your efforts to make better use of existing industrial land through intensification.

·         (PR) 35 that there should be a ‘comprehensive review of the Green Belt in London as part of the next review of the London Plan.’ This would directly lead to speculation, opportunism and land banking. It would tie the hands of the future Mayor, send the wrong signals to developers and undermine policies aimed at making better use of existing developed land.

I also strongly object to approach taken by the Inspectors to your proposed policies to protect Metropolitan Open Land which is critical in providing access to green spaces for all Londoners and in managing climate change. I strongly support your Policy G3 which seeks to ensure that the overall extent of MOL is not reduced and aims to improve its value for Londoners. I strongly oppose Panel Recommendations (PRs) 37 and 38 and urge you to retain effective policies to protect, extend and improve MOL. 

Please resist the Inspector’s Panel Recommendations which undermine the effectiveness of Green Belt and MOL policies in delivering sustainable patterns of development.

Thank you

Yours sincerely,