The Green Belt is there for a purpose

No matter where you are in the town it's only a few minutes drive before the brick walls of urban Wycombe gives way to hedgerows, green fields and trees.

Thankfully a great deal of the country side is classified as green belt and is therefore protected from the devilish claws of developers, builders and other undesirables who only see commercial opportunities where we see countryside and nature.

You can imagine how dumbfounded I was after reading the news article entitled “Concern at Green Belt changes” which appeared on the news section of this website yesterday.

According to the news article changes to the planning process would give councils the power to approve development of Green Belt areas so long as another piece of land the same size was then reclassified as Green Belt.

The suggestion is just ridiculous!

Green Belt is defined as such precisely to stop building on it and saying that you can build on land that was set aside for a purpose so long as we then put a similar stipulation on another piece of land somewhere else is madness.

If we go down that route will they will be saying that areas of outstanding natural beauty can also built on providing someone plants some bluebells in a field somewhere to replace the AONB that has just been ruined?

In my opinion Green Belt land should never be built on.

I think there should be a register created of brown belt land which needs re-developing and builders should only be able to build on land on the brown belt register.

I also think that no planning permissions should ever be allowed to go ahead if residents living nearby who own their properties raise objections.

What actually needs overhauling is the entire planning process to make it harder to build and the new planning regulations need to be more in favour of the residents rather than the developers.

The last thing we need is Green Belt land being put as the disposal of developers to pick and choose where they want to build indeed the land is protected for a purpose and the greed of developers should not jeopardise our scenery and views.

I would like to see more land designated as Green Belt indeed no parcel of land is too small to be preserved.

Maybe the powers that be should start classifying front gardens as green Belt to stop unscrupulous home owners paving them over to park cars on?

What do you think?

*Don't forget to read my regular column in this Friday's edition of the printed version of the Bucks Free Press!

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