Sam Dumitriu

Only two members of the EU 27 have less built environment per capita than the UK: the Netherlands and Cyprus.

90% of land in England remains undeveloped, and just 0.5% would be required to fulfil this decade’s housing needs.

Green Belt’s don’t prevent urban sprawl. They encourage leapfrog development and longer commutes.

Green spaces on the Green Belt provide 50 times fewer amenity benefits than city parks. Each hectare of city park is estimated to be of £54,000 benefit per year, compared to a mere £889 per hectare for Green Belt land on the fringe of an urban area.

Allowing building on the 3.7 per cent of London’s Green Belt within ten minutes walking distance of a train station would create 1 million homes. Enough to meet the city’s housing demands for more than the next decade.

Expanding it to ten minutes cycling distance would free up enough land to meet twice London’s housing demands for the next decade.

Both of these proposals would include existing protections of environmentally valuable land. Building would only take place on intensively farmed agricultural land and non-green parts of the green belt.

When people think of the Green Belt they assume green fields and rolling hills. The reality is the garage next to Tottenham Hale tube station. http://www.siobhainmcdonagh.org.uk/campaigns/londons-green-belt.aspx …

The thread, now in op-ed format. http://www.cityam.com/290502/lets-face-some-home-truths-londons-green-belt …