Building on the green belt won’t solve London’s housing crisis
The Mayor’s plan to release green belt land for development is a good start, but if we really want to fix London’s housing crisis we need to build more and higher in the centre, says Joe Hill
London’s success isn’t inevitable. It’s based on people wanting to live and work here, and there being enough space to house them. The Mayor is right to announce that he will release some green belt land for housing – but he wouldn’t have to if we could just build more densely in the centre of the city.
Great cities like London succeed because of powerful agglomeration effects – the secret recipe for prosperity. The more people can move to the places where the best jobs and best infrastructure are, the more companies and government can invest in that area – perpetuating the virtuous cycle. Denser populations generate innovation – people are more likely to invent new technologies and found companies in areas with a density of relevant talent. And more people means more demand for public amenities which benefit us all – like public transport networks, public spaces and leisure facilities.
But that only works if we let people live here. London’s housing stock is desperately inadequate to house the population it has, and demand for more housing has far outstripped the supply for a long time. London builds about 35,000 homes each year, less than half the demand for 88,000 which City Hall estimates. This drives up prices, pushing more and more residents further and further out of London in search of affordable homes – or often out of the city altogether. And those that stay often have to put up with less and less space, meaning they have smaller families – the birth rate in London fell by 20 per cent between 2012 and 2022, and demand for school places is dropping as well.
The not-so-green belt
The green belt is one place to find more land for thousands of the new homes that London needs. Much of it is far from green, including everything from garages to old utilities. And even less of the green space is for public use. Most green belt land is private – including the 95 golf courses, which together take up more land than the entire London Borough of Brent. Just 22 per cent of all green belt land has public access and is environmentally protected – good development could make more of this the case, rather than less.
Despite being further from urban centres, much green belt land is very commutable. 3,616 hectares of it are within a 10 minute walk of a tube, rail or tram station – an area 25 times the size of Hyde Park. This should be the priority for any new housing, to make the most of these accessible locations.
But in the long term, this kind of development can only be part of a bigger solution. Because this kind of continual sprawl outwards is not the only choice.
When you ask most people where they want to live, it isn’t on green belt land far from the city centre, it’s much more centrally. We’re only forced to look to this land for development because of an even bigger constraint than the green belt, the planning system’s habit of preventing developers building much more densely in existing urban areas.
Dense cities don’t have to be ugly. The centre of Paris is incredibly beautiful, and far more densely built than most of London. Indeed at home, it’s the densest areas of London which are often regarded as most beautiful and desirable. Multi-storey mansion blocks like those in Chelsea could be much more common throughout the city, and make most areas much nicer to live in at the same time.
Building on the outskirts is a good step, particularly where the land is well-connected and of poor environmental quality. But to build the housing that would let London really thrive, the Mayor should look much closer to home. City Hall should focus on building a denser London which gives people a chance to live where they want to, rather than where they have to.
Joe Hill is policy director at Reform think tank