NEWS RELEASE
April 6, 2019
SEVENOAKS PLAN UNDER FIRE FOR ‘UNNECESSARY SACRIFICE’ OF EDENBRIDGE GREEN BELT
The Sevenoaks Local Plan is in danger of sacrificing vast greenfield areas around Edenbridge unnecessarily. This is the conclusion of the London Green Belt Council, whose chairman, Richard Knox-Johnston, visited several sites in the town where Sevenoaks District Council propose to alter Green Belt boundaries, and other fields around Edenbridge which housing developers want to build on.
Sevenoaks Council has misinterpreted the Government’s planning guidelines,” says Richard Knox-Johnston. “Nowhere in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) does it state that district councils are required to carry out a Green Belt Review or even to offer Green Belt land in order to meet housing targets. Indeed, in a letter to MPs, the Housing Minister has said: ‘We have been repeatedly clear that demand for housing alone will not change Green Belt boundaries.’
"By including Green Belt sites in their Local Plan, Sevenoaks Council have opened their precious countryside to landbankers and developers who will always make a much larger profit from developing Green Belt sites. Planning Inspectors, in their examination of a Local Plan, are not entitled to ask the local authority for a Green Belt review, neither are they empowered to demand development in the Green Belt.
“In order for Green Belt land to be considered for housing it has to be suggested by the district council itself – and this is exactly what Sevenoaks Council has done, despite the fact that it was unnecessary for them to do so.” Mr Knox-Johnston adds: “It seems that instead of making a case for constraint based on much of the district being Green Belt and AONB, Sevenoaks Council have attempted to meet unrealistic housing figures by altering the existing Green Belt status of large tracts of countryside, and also by allowing housing development on nurseries and allotments, originally only permitted in the Green Belt because their activities retained the openness of the countryside.
” The London Green Belt Council is an umbrella organisation of more than 100 local amenity societies, residents’ associations, civic societies and environmental groups throughout London and the Home Counties. Their shared aim is to protect and enhance the Green Belt.
When asked how else Sevenoaks Council might meet the needs for more housing locally for young families, Mr Knox-Johnston pointed out that “throughout the entire Green Belt around London no truly affordable homes, based on average local incomes, have yet been built. Developers, in order to increase their profits, have preferred to build larger houses in open countryside rather than on the many brownfield sites around London that are still available.”
The London Green Belt Council is calling on candidates standing for election to Sevenoaks Council next month to pledge their support for the protection of the Green Belt and to oppose the “unnecessary sacrifice of Green Belt countryside and open spaces in the district.”
-ENDS
Press contacts: Richard Knox-Johnston, Chairman, The London Green Belt Council, Tel: 01795 844086, Email: rkj@r2uk.com;
Andy Smith, Secretary, The London Green Belt Council, Tel: 07737 271676, Email: londongbelt@aol.com
Website: www.londongreenbeltcouncil.org.uk