Protecting green belt must start at local level

THANK you for publishing Rob Waugh’s excellent article on the failure of the Government to protect the green belt (Yorkshire Post, March 18) and for your accompanying Editorial.

Sadly the statement you quoted from the Department of Communities and Local Government indicates that the only people able to do something to control the disastrous urban sprawl we are threatened with, will not actually read them. Large “quoted” developers exist to make a profit, but need financial incentives to profit from building on brownfield sites and councils have a duty to ensure sufficient homes are built for the anticipated increase in population.

The easiest way to achieve these needs is for councils to free up green land for building by exaggerating the housing need, as in the case of Leeds City Council, where there is no way that 105,000 new residents by 2028 will actually need 74,000 new homes. Some new homes have to be built on green fields, but the proposed massive spread of housing through the suburbs is morally indefensible and will push the infrastructure way beyond breaking point, while doing virtually nothing to help those in the city centre who need homes and for whom describing private homes in the suburbs as “affordable” is a sick joke.

In spite of all the fine words about protecting the environment, the hot air in the future will be coming from the car exhausts of thousands of additional commuters and thanks to the Government’s failure to define “local”, residents are powerless to resist.

Viewed from a former urban district, Civic Hall is as insensitive and remote as Westminster and I believe the Government should have made it clear from the start that true localism begins below those tiers occupied by professional politicians.