Manchester's Green Belt Binge

Manchester has developed 34.3% of its green belt, the only city in England to cover so much grass with bricks, mortar and tarmac.

Government data published for the first time reveals the extent of development in local authority areas across England. Manchester’s figure is massively out of line with a national average of just 8.4%. Wolverhampton ranked second with 27.1%.

Yet the figures show that hardly any of this land has been used for housing. Nationally, the average proportion of green belt taken up by residential development across England is 0.28%, compared with 4.6% occupied by transport and utilities.

The data comes as Metro Mayor Andy Burnham prepares for the next stage of his fight to adopt a new Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. The plan, which has already had to be rewritten after Burnham backed away from earlier plans to use more green belt, has faced serious criticism from residents and within the property business.

Early reactions were cautiously welcoming. But in one of the first thorough analyses, the strategy intended to guide development in the city region to 2037 comes in for some carefully worded but nonetheless serious criticism.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government published detailed development breakdowns for green belts for all 185 local authority areas for the first time. The analysis of government data is by modular homes developer Project Etopia.

Last week government published data that showed how the proportion of homes built on green belt land had halved in a year, while the number of new residential address built on previously developed land had dropped three percentage points to 53%.

The 10 towns and cities with the highest proportion of development within the Green Belt are: