Green Belt Development Pressures

As residents will be aware, every few years Reigate and Banstead Council undertakes a review and update of planning policy for each local area throughout the Borough. Invariably as this process commences, developers strive to find ways to influence the process to their advantage.

Since Kingswood is surrounded by significant Green Belt land, predictably there are attempts to pressure the Council to release some of this land for development. At the same time developers also seek to influence local residents to believe that such development is likely or even inevitable.

The latest Council review of local planning is now commencing and already some residents have received letters from a developer implying that they intend substantial Green Belt development on land adjacent to Kingswood.

Just to clarify the position therefore, under the current Plan the Council had already identified sufficient land to meet its housing targets without the need to sacrifice any Green Belt land. The new Plan of course has yet to be formulated so we cannot comment on its content, but so far as we can establish at present, there seems no evidence of a need to relax the current policy on Green Belt land.

We will of course continue to monitor the position and will be contributing views on the proposed plan as it evolves, but in the meantime we advise that developer promotional material should be viewed in the knowledge that our Council has consistently placed a very high value on the benefits of the Green Belt.

Des Camblin
Planning & Development – KRA