LandTech Blog

Insight: Around 300,000 houses could be delivered on the ‘Grey Belt’

Written by Harry Quartermain | 05-Jul-2024 10:24:53

The Labour Party has formed a new government of the United Kingdom. Among the many pressing issues highlighted during the short election campaign, housing policy emerged as a particularly significant concern. In April, Labour laid out their blueprint for tackling housing shortages and sustainability concerns, which focused on building on 'ugly' parts of the Green Belt land - now coined as the “Grey Belt”.


Releasing any land in the Green Belt has proven to be an emotionally (or politically) loaded topic. At Housing 2021, we presented our own analysis, which showed that if we released just one per cent of the Green Belt we could deliver a year’s worth of new housing (over 300,000 homes at a generous 41 dwellings per hectare). You can read that analysis here.


Following on this research, and what Labour has initially proposed for the Grey Belt, we took the liberty of conducting another preliminary analysis to understand the housing capacity the Grey Belt might offer. Our research has indicated that approximately 300,000 homes can be delivered on sites that might fall within the definition of Grey Belt - a similar finding from our original research on the Green Belt.


In this blog, we’ll dive further into this element of Labour’s proposed housing policy and take a look at what our early research indicates could be possible in terms of housing delivery on the Grey Belt.