A new report from Localis, Disrupting the Housing Market, has suggested that local authorities should be able to re-designate Green Belt land using ‘yellowfield registers’, to unlock land with potential for new housing.
The report aims to address the structural problems affecting housing delivery, while also recognising the need to protect valuable areas of the Green Belt.
The Yellowfield registers could be used to highlight green belt land that does not provide environmental benefits and / or meet the five purposes of the Green Belt and highlight Green Belt land that has already been developed.
The UK’s land use policy was initially designed in the 1950s and overtime has contributed to mislabelling plots of land as Green Belt which are part developed or do not contribute to the Green Belt’s purposes. This has constrained housing delivery and the take-up of yellowfield registers could therefore assist in building more homes where they are desperately needed.