Skip to main content

Podcast episode 141: Grey Belt: policy guidance and appeals

Podcast episode 141 is available now via this link or from iTunes and Spotify.

For how long Grey Belt remains part of the policy landscape time will tell, but in the here and now it represents very welcome political recognition that the homes the country needs cannot be built without developing land that is currently identified as Green Belt.
The irresistible force, it might be said, has started to shift the immoveable object...

If that dynamic continues it may prompt questions about what the Green Belt should actually be for and, perhaps, a Royal Commission on it’s future, but that is very much for tomorrow...

In the here and now planners need to know how the inclusion of the Grey Belt concept within the December 2024 version of the NPPF will affect their working lives because anybody involved in trying to bring sustainable sites forward will most surely have their working lives affected.

To support practitioners understand the implications of Grey Belt Landmark Chambers held a seminar in London in early May 2025, which, unsurprisingly, was heavily over-subscribed and so the audio was captured in order that the insights shared by some of the Landmark team could be shared by way of the 50 Shades podcast.

This episodes includes:

  • Christopher Boyle KC introducing Grey Belt as it is defined in the NPPF, the implications for plan-making and decision making, and an introduction to the Golden Rules;
  • Melissa Murphy KC diving a little more deeply into the practical implications;
  • Stephen Whale reviewing the Grey Belt appeal decisions that have been permitted;
  • Nick Grant reviewing the Grey Belt appeal decisions that have been dismissed; and
  • Hashi Mohamed offering his top tips for clients.

Either side of those contributions are opening and closing remarks from Rupert Warren KC.



Comments

  1. Amita Patel23 November 2025 at 08:33

    Looking for reliable powder coating guns in West Midlands? Get top-quality equipment, superior finish results, and affordable pricing. Enquire today!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life on the Front Line

I like it when people get in touch with me to suggest topics for 50 Shades of Planning Podcast episodes because, firstly, it means that people are listening to it and also, and most importantly, it means I do not have to come up with ideas myself. I found this message from a team leader at a local authority striking and sobering though. In a subsequent conversation the person that sent this confided in me that their team is virtually in crisis mode. It is probably fair to say that the planning system is in crisis, but then it is also probably fair to say that the planning system is always in crisis… There is, of course, the issue of resources. Whilst according to a Planning magazine survey slightly more LPAs are predicting growth in planning department budgets (25%) rather than a contraction (22%), this has to be seen in the context of a 38% real-terms fall in net current expenditure on planning functions between 2010–11 and 2017–18. Beyond resources though the current crisis feels m...
136 comments
Read more

50 Shades of Planning T-Shirts!

If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning Podcast you will have heard Clive Betts say that... 'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'. I said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt so I have made a few and it does! They are available in black or white (in S, M and L sizes) and are £15 if there is a chance that I'll be able to deliver one to you or £20 if you will need it posting. Please email samstafford@hotmail.com if you would like one. Planning might not be black and white, but the 50 Shades t-shirts are...
112 comments
Read more

YIMBYs and NIMBYs. Is planning becoming a new front in the culture war?

Prepare the barricades, fellow planners; dig out a shelter at the bottom of your garden (if you are lucky enough to have a garden…); and stock up on tins of non-perishable food. There might be a culture war coming and a good planner always spots trouble before it arrives... Given broader cultural, media and political trends it was perhaps only a matter of time before the built environment was subject to the same us versus them, progressive versus regressive factionalism that mars other aspects of public policy and debate. Twitter, of course, is not representative of public opinion, but it can be representative of the cultural, media and political influencers that are shaping it and I spotted this image on there recently. As far as I could tell it was a Brit that posted it and so it is not one of those unseemly intellectual skirmishes breezily dismissed as something our crazy, madcap cousins on the other side of the Atlantic occupy themselves with. Stereotypes are sometimes funny and so...
45 comments
Read more