Green Belt
Areas of land designated in Local Plans where development is restricted to prevent urban sprawl and the merging of towns. New development is generally 'inappropriate' unless it falls within defined exceptions, and 'very special circumstances' must be shown to justify inappropriate development.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
Government guidance explains Green Belt protection through the specific purposes it serves, several of which are directly quoted in current planning guidance. Two of the core purposes are: 'Purpose A – to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas' and 'Purpose B – to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another.' Assessing how strongly a piece of land contributes to those purposes matters because the guidance explains authorities must 'evaluate the contribution each assessment area makes to Green Belt purposes' when considering whether to release land for development.
Where development is judged 'inappropriate' in the Green Belt, the bar to allow it anyway is high: guidance confirms decision-makers must be satisfied that any harm is 'clearly outweighed' by other considerations amounting to 'very special circumstances', and notes courts have held that where development is not considered inappropriate in the first place — for example, some development on 'grey belt' or previously developed land — 'it follows that the test of impacts to openness or to Green Belt purposes are addressed and that therefore a proposal does not have to be justified by "very special circumstances"' at all. Assessing harm to openness itself is fact-specific: guidance notes 'openness is capable of having both spatial and visual aspects — in other words, the visual impact of the proposal may be relevant, as could its volume', alongside factors like 'the duration of the development, and its remediability.'
Related terms
Official sources
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