Paul Smith

If you wondered why there's a viability crisis in the housing industry at the moment, here's your answer.

House construction costs rose nearly three times as much as UK house prices over the five years to June 2026.

This village in Shropshire has decided it wants to be a town - so it can stop new homes being built.

National planning policy says it can be OK to build homes in the green belt if, among other things, there's an unmet need for homes and the site is classed as grey belt.

The definition of grey belt is a pretty technocratic one that relates to three of the five official "purposes" of the green belt set out in national policy.

But those purposes explicitly apply to towns and large built up areas - not villages. Which means that all green belt on the edge of villages is, strictly speaking, grey belt.

That, of course, isn't the end of the story. To get permission, there's a whole smorgasbord of other policy requirements you need to meet.

For a start, simply for the proposals to be seen as "not inappropriate" development, they must comply with the golden rules, be in a sustainable location, and not undermine the purpose of the green belt as a whole in addition to being on land classed as grey belt and there being unmet need. And then there are all the usual planning policy requirements to contend with.

Nor is redefining yourself as a town a silver-bullet to prevent development. Green belt on the edge of towns can - and often does - still meet the definition of grey belt. But it does introduce another hurdle for developers to overcome.

So my guess is we'll see more of this.

Stockport Council has a 1.77 year housing land supply.

They get points for novelty, at least.

Northern Powerhouse Rail isn’t a thing.

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