Death of Green Belt Policy?

[rpriv2000]

I hope I have posted this in the best place... Could anyone here confirm or deny that it is possible to get Green Belt land re-designated to Brownfield with the following means? It would appear that Golf Course owners near Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire want to realise a bit of cash by selling off their land to build an eco village. Or building it themselves. In preparation they have allegedly surrounded part of the land with a 3 meter high embankment of land fill. This, if so far undenied rumours are indeed true, allows them to call the area Brownfield!

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displ ... ebarsearch

Is it possible that the government are complicit in abandoning our Green Belt policy to placate the builders even though there is so much housing standing empty????

Cotgrave is already under siege from developers with planning permission granted for 400 or more homes on the old pithead (reasonable idea if it did not put an horrendous burden on the already overstretched infrastructure of the village). There are also plans to build a further 450 (plus, of course) on lovely wedge of green field area at the edge of the village impacting on wildlife, drainage, medical, policing and other services apart from the amazing load on the traffic. The village is fighting this tooth and nail only to be faced with another 20 odd acres of green being sold for potential development and now this “eco” town idea!
The fact that the area in question is already an open space, that access to the Grantham Canal is quite sufficient, thank you, and further access would be horribly disruptive to the wildlife, (safe for the moment on one bank at least) is ignored in the article. The claim that tram links to Nottingham would be restored is a probable nonsense. It took Nottingham years to pay for and complete the excellent tramway in the city. Have the private investors for this project got scores of millions of quid in their back pockets? If so let them build tramways to existing beleaguered Cotgrave before embarking on this new scheme. Then the eco village might be built entirely free of roads other than the minimum service access and be therefore without the carbon footprint of motor vehicles parked in driveways altogether! Same with the Schools and Health facilities... all under strain in Cotgrave. Let them bring them up to and beyond scratch and THEN build.
As for the golf course . . . it really spoils a good walk... but admitably protects the wildlife on the canal’s northern bank.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CotgraveActionGroup
if you would like to know more, help or comment. If you can support our plea to avoid becoming another Nottingham estate please do so here.

[DominicJ]

We can hope I suppose.

Greenbelts are nothing of the sort.
They simply drew a circle round cities and said you cant build there, theres no real reason to protect any of the land, and doing so causes more damage.
We end up with people commuting further to go to work, and more damage being caused by high density developments around the green belt.

They could have said you can only build 1 dwelling per 1/4acre, which would have loads of greenspace, large gardens filled with flowers and tree's, but instead we end up with 18 dwellings an acre and oceans of concrete.