Survey: 60% think green belt protection should come before housing

A survey has found that six in 10 (60 per cent) people in England favour retaining the green belt as it is – even if it ‘restricts’ the ability to meet housing need.

The research, conducted by Ipsos for The Economist, found that 21 per cent of respondents had the opposite view.

It reveals that this view of preference for retaining the current green belt exists among all groups and geographies but “is narrower among younger age groups, people in London, renters, those who support new building and those who agree that affordability will be a problem without increasing supply”.

Furthermore, the public “wildly overestimates development” and considers restrictive planning to be a factor in the undersupply of homes.

In Britain, 55 per cent of people disagree that housing is affordable “for people like me”, with 55 per cent of respondents in England thinking the same. In England, this rises to 72 per cent among private renters.

Of the respondents, 52 per cent of people across Britain and 52 per cent in England consider the planning system and the green belt as responsible “a great deal or a fair amount” of the time.

The survey also found:

• 49 per cent of people in Britain and England think the difficulties for developers in finding sites for new homes are to blame.
• 62 per cent of people in Britain and 61 per cent of people in England think the financial position of local councils preventing them building more new homes is a contributing factor.
• 45 per cent of people support more homes being built locally in Britain compared with 27 per cent that oppose this.
• 12 per cent – the mean guess for the percentage of land in England (excluding ‘don’t knows’) currently developed – defined as “land that has been built on and is occupied by a permanent structure such as a building or a road, a path or pavement, a railway line”. The real figure is 8.7 per cent, according to the ONS in April 2022.
• The mean guess (excluding don’t knows) for the percentage of land in England that is taken by people’s homes (excluding homes above shops and homes’ gardens) is 38.94% compared with the real figure of around 2 per cent, according to Ordnance Survey.

Ben Marshall, research director at Ipsos, said: “Even people who are instinctively pro-building new homes are cool on prioritising meeting the country’s housing needs at the expense of some green belt land.

“This is likely to be related to the pretty warped mental image of how much of our landscape is built upon, likely to reflect the way people live but also their innate concerns. Another factor could be that they think there are many reasons, not just restrictive planning, for housing undersupply including political disinterest and local opposition.

“This research further underlines the power of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ as words in narratives about building new homes and infrastructure. At the same time, public opinion is nuanced, something which politicians and planners should see as an opportunity as much as a threat.”

Ipsos surveyed a representative sample of 2,122 adults aged 18-plus across Great Britain. Some questions were confined to a sample of 1,850 in England.

More information on the survey can be found on the Ipsos website.

21 Aug 2023

Laura Edgar, The Planner

Our planning news is published in association with The Planner, the official magazine of the Royal Town Planning Institute.