Action Briefing Aug 2005 - Sept 2005
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Fifty years on, everybody wants a slice of the Green Belt

It's fifty years since the Ministry of Housing and Local Government issued its historic 'Green Belt Circular 42/55' of 3rd August 1955, inviting local authorities to identify land for the establishment of Green Belts.

To mark the occasion, Birmingham Friends of the Earth presented Caroline Spelman MP and prospective Conservative candidate for Solihull Maggie Throup with a 'Green Belt 50th Birthday Cake', a banana and raisin cake decorated with gooey green icing and birthday candles.

Designated Green Belts have for half a century successfully contained the spread of large built-up areas which could otherwise have devoured even more of our countryside. Caroline, who is Shadow Secretary for Local Government and Communities, said, "When the Green Belt was conceived fifty years ago it was to protect our precious green spaces from urban sprawl, but this safeguard is now under increasing threat. Over recent years, Green Belt protection has been erased on a whim by unelected regional bureaucrats and consistently sidelined by weaker planning rules."

The location, Friday Lane, Catherine-de-Barnes, on a bridge overlooking the M42 and the Meriden Gap, was highly significant for Caroline and Maggie, who have both worked extremely hard over the years to prevent a widened M42 motorway, Birmingham airport's second runway, and a motorway service station from taking a bite out of this beleaguered stretch of Green Belt.

The net increase in the area of designated Green Belt that has occurred since Labour came to power in 1997, although welcome, does not tell the whole story. Indeed, in some places the Green Belt is under unprecedented assault, often as a direct result of the Government's own policies. The practice of swapping lost or threatened Green Belt land for new sites in areas where the pressure for development is not so intense is undermining the very thing that has made Green Belts such a success story: the permanence of their boundaries.

The Government need to be reminded that they can't have their cake and eat it when it comes to the Green Belt. Green Belt land is precious, not because it is especially picturesque or valuable for nature conservation, although it can be, but because it is open, undeveloped and accessible to the urban population. Ministers must find the political will to unequivocally support permanent Green Belt boundaries, if the next fifty years of the Green Belt are to be as successful as the first.

James Botham