City Talks: Can we address the housebuilding crisis by building on the ‘grey belt’?

Centre for Cities

Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Tom Dobson, Managing Director of Quod, Heather Sargent, Barrister at Landmark Chambers, and Ant Breach, Associate Director at Centre for Cities, to discuss the Labour party’s proposals to release land for housing development on what it calls the ‘grey belt’ – poor-quality or unsightly greenbelt land.

If elected to government, Labour will come under immediate pressure to implement planning reforms and boost housebuilding. Labour has pledged that it would build 1.5 million homes and sees the ‘grey belt’ as an important route to doing so. Are its proposals enough to fill the housebuilding shortfall and relieve the pressure on cities? How would greybelt development work in practice? And what more needs to be introduced?

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