PROTECTION OF THE GREEN BELT

That this House notes the need to protect the Green Belt which is made up of undeveloped land that surrounds urban areas; pays tribute to Ebenezer Howard who first proposed the Green Belt in his 1898 book, Garden Cities of Tomorrow, and whose day job was as a Hansard Reporter in Parliament; further notes that the Metropolitan Green Belt was proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935, was enacted by Parliament in 1938 and was extended to other parts of the UK in 1955; acknowledges the need to build new homes; further notes that these new homes should first be built on brown field land such as the Servis Site in Darlaston, Walsall, which has planning permission for 124 homes; further considers that the practice of land banking should be ended and that those areas of land that already have planning permission should be developed before new areas are used; further notes the National Planning Policy Framework, published in March 2012, and the section titled Protecting Green Belt land; calls on the Government to commit to protecting the Green Belt from development and urban sprawl; and further calls on the Government to attach the appropriate weight on planning grounds, balancing the need for housing with a protection of the countryside preserved for future generations.