As part of the Government’s drive to deliver 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, there will be changes to the “Green Belts”. Introduced in 1955, these belts were designed to limit the growth of built-up areas, and to stop large towns merging into one another.
In that, over the last 70 years, the Green Belts have largely achieved that goal. However, today, the green belt is one of the main obstacles to achieving the Government’s annual housing target.
Currently, Green Belt covers about 12.5% of the land area of England, but Angela Rayner has revealed that, if a council’s housing targets cannot be met, some existing green belt land will be freed up for the construction of new homes.
Under the Government’s plans, “poor quality and ugly areas” of Green Belt land will be re-designated as “grey belt”. The Government argues that much of this land – around 5% of Green Belt – is currently used for environmentally unfriendly purposes, such as intensive farming or golf courses, which provide limited public benefits and could potentially harm the environment.
Development of these areas could turn these areas into environmentally friendly homes, and profits generated could potentially contribute to restoring valuable nature reserves.
Wastewater considerations
Such developments are likely to abut Green Belt land, some, if not most, of which has ecological value and is probably environmentally sensitive. It is essential that new developments, and the domestic wastewater that they generate, should not impact these adjacent areas.
Green Belt areas are unlikely to have convenient sewers so, given the time and cost of connections and way-leaves, on-site treatment of domestic wastewater is probably the most effective solution. Natural solutions like reed beds and wetlands can be designed to be attractive features, but they take up large areas as size limits how much raw domestic wastewater they can handle.
However, pre-treatment by a package plant like te-cycᵀᴹ reduces the load and allows natural treatment to be implemented as “final effluent polishing” in a way that can add amenity value and promote biodiversity.
Learn more about te-cyc technology here: https://www.te-tech.co.uk/products/wastewater-treatment-products/te-cyc