Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of how many new homes will be built on green belt land in England during 2016.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

We do not collate information centrally on the number of sites that are available for residential development. Local planning authorities are required to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide five years worth of housing against their housing requirements. Whether those sites are in the Green Belt is again a matter for local planning authorities to consider in line with national planning policy, which makes clear that Green Belt boundaries should be altered only in exceptional circumstances.