Sir Keir Starmer is wrong on Green Belt development - Yorkshire Post Letters

Sir Keir Starmer is quoted as saying that local councils should be given power to direct where new housing should go, even when it is on the Green Belt (Yorkshire Post, 18 May).

Doesn't he realise that this is what councils already do? They bring forward their proposals for Green Belt, for housing, and lots of other things, through their Development Plans. These Plans, together with any objections which they have attracted, go through a process of examination in public undertaken by planning inspectors, and councils' proposals are normally endorsed unless they are wholly devoid of reason. So it is the councils who already set the Green Belt boundaries.

Or is Sir Keir suggesting that, having designated Green Belts through this open public process, councils should now be allowed to say "this was a charade, it doesn't mean anything, we'll ignore it"? I think we should be told.

To my mind, the major issue is that a lot of volume housebuilders just don't want the hassle of redeveloping previously used sites, or the costs that go with them, which is why they much prefer to build on open land.

Politicians who could come up with a practical solution to this conundrum, and carry the development industry with them, would get my vote.