This short report was first published as a lead story for our Nouseletter.
Potential changes in planning policy will open up the rural outskirts of York to residential development.
The government is currently getting consultation on rules that would give councils power to hand out compulsory purchase orders to greenbelt landowners. Landowners would be forced to hand over their land for a fixed, non-negotiable sum if the council thought their land was suitable for the development of a “quality housing scheme”.
The sum would provide them with a “fair but not excessive return”, stopping land owners from over-charging councils and preventing new houses from being built.
These rules would help councils to meet new mandatory housing targets, which seek to build 370,000 new homes per year nationally. The mandatory target for York is 1,251 homes, which demands that the rate of houses built per year increases by 2.6 times.
The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act introduced the green belt in response to anxieties over post-war urbanisation. It is mostly owned by farmers and covers 13% of the UK. The modern green belt restricts the sprawl of residential, commercial and urban developments, conserves nature, and provides Britain’s urban population with nearby countryside.
York is surrounded by several green belts for six miles in every direction, covering over 22 thousand hectares. If the new rules are implemented, this entire area could be opened up to previously impossible housing development.
A 101-home development of affordable homes at sites at Hospital Fields Road and Fulford Road was recently approved. Existing late 19th and early 20th Century buildings at the sites will be demolished.
Recent analysis by the National Housing Federation found that it will take more than 3 years for social housing wait-lists in York to be cleared. Housing affordability is a huge problem in York - the average price rose to £300,000 in 2023, and there is a huge gap between wages and prices.
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