Decisions, decisions! Our lives are brimming with them, from the minute and routine, for example, what to eat, to the fundamental, such as what Green Belt Architectural Businesses to invest in.

The primary intention of a green belt is to halt urban sprawl, preventing one city from running into the next, separating countryside from heavy concentrations of housing and commercial development with a kind of buffer zone. This also means that outlying towns don’t become absorbed into suburbs, losing their identity and all semblance of character in the process. Green corridors include towpaths along canals and riverbanks, cycleways, rights of way and disused railway lines. The primary purpose is to provide opportunities for walking, cycling and horse riding whether for leisure purposes or travel and opportunities for wildlife migration. They may also link different pieces of green space to one another, to create a green infrastructure network. A team of RIBA Chartered Architects and Architectural Assistants have a wealth of experience working with homeowners, developers and the public sector. They can help you to establish your brief and work through your design ideas, whilst bringing solutions to make your building a successful place to live or work in. Countryside campaigners have long called for an even larger green belt designation and greater protections therein. In 2010, a report from Natural England and CPRE (formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England), entitled ‘Green Belts: A greener future’, concluded that Green Belt policy was “highly effective” in its principal purpose, but called for “more ambition” to further enhance the Green Belt protection for future generations. Architecture consultants specialising in the green belt take pride in delivering high-quality build planning architectural services to private and commercial clients. Many have worked closely with a vast range of planning authorities on a wide variety of projects, including small extensions, large flat schemes and anything in between. Despite the obvious benefits of preserving green belts for posterity, people need homes. House- building targets imposed by successive governments mean that some local authorities feel the need to release green belt land for development. At what cost to society and to future generations?



While not a reason to designate Green Belt, paragraph 81 of the NPPF states that Green Belts should be used to, amongst other things, retain and enhance landscapes and visual amenity. Where extensions or alterations to buildings will adversely affect valuable views into or out of the village or previously developed site, the proposals will not be supported. Architecture & Planning teams provide innovative, creative and deliverable planning consultancy and architectural design across their networks. They are well placed to deliver green belt projects locally and regionally. A green belt architect's strength is the exceptional skills and broad range of experience held by each member. Being a part of a multi-disciplinary practice, they have close working relationships with the other departments that allows immediate dialogue between teams. Net Zero Energy Buildings can improve or maintain your competitive advantage, improve the value of the property, mitigate market risk, and promote the health and wellbeing of occupants. My thoughts on Net Zero Architect differ on a daily basis.

Repurposing The Green Belt

Green belt architects have gathered considerable experience in providing planting plans, advice and designs for sites with specialist requirements. This could be due to the restrictions imposed by known archeology, historical significance, health and safety legislation, the way a site is to be used or the requirements of a particular group using it. Over the next 15 years we’ll need to build at least 2 million new homes, and probably more. We could fit 3 million or more homes into existing towns and cities to reduce pressure on land in the countryside. Existing homes should also be refurbished to high standards of energy efficiency and water use and empty properties brought back into use. Urban sprawl is low-density development, outside city boundaries. It is unable to support local buses, jobs, shops and services. It relies on cars and increases energy use, pollution and traffic congestion. It increases transport costs and social isolation, leads to loss of countryside, destruction of agricultural land and wildlife habitat, and creates high-carbon, inefficient developments, with polluted air, traffic congestion, dangerous roads, and few if any opportunities for safe walking and cycling. In the Green Belt there are often gaps within existing settlements or within groups of existing buildings where a strictly limited amount of new building could occur without resulting in any encroachment of development into open countryside and without conflicting with other objectives of the Green Belt. It is important however that such development is strictly controlled. The largest Green Belt is around London (5,091 km2,), but similar circles also exist around Merseyside and Greater Manchester (2,493 km2), South and West Yorkshire (2,475 km2), Birmingham (2,271 km2), Tyne and Wear (720 km2), Bath and Bristol (720 km2), Derby and Nottingham (660 km2), Stoke onTrent (445 km2), Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (348 km2), Oxford (348 km2), York (280 km2), Cambridge (261 km2), Cheltenham and Gloucester (62 km2), Blackpool (25 km2), Carnforth and Lancaster (17 km2), and Burton upon Trent (7 km2). Taking account of Architect London helps immensely when developing a green belt project’s unique design.

Gaining planning permission for a Green Belt site can be very complex, and as described above, it’s more likely to be successful if the ‘design is of exceptional quality’. The quality of landscape is not relevant to the inclusion of land within Green Belt or its continued protection. Rather than being a tool to protect countryside, Green Belt is a strategic planning policy tool to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. A team of experienced green belt architects, planning consultants, technologists, interior designers and project managers are well versed in all of the constraints of developing on green belt land and are aware of all the various greenbelt planning loopholes. Planning Practice Guidance clarifies that where is has been demonstrated that it is necessary to release Green Belt land for development, strategic plan-making authorities should set out policies for such compensatory improvements. Architects specialising in the green belt can help you find the most successful natural-infrastructure solutions; minimise the risk to users of their land, form plans to improve ecology and advise construction companies how to work safely around their site. Clever design involving New Forest National Park Planning is like negotiating a maze.

Architecture Green Belt Design And Planning

A green belt architectural team provides a professional and bespoke architectural service specifically tailored to the requirements of their clients across the UK. Each new building is designed to reflect high architectural aspirations having regard to the individual design brief of the client and the context of the site. Architects that design for the green belt design houses that are unique to their location and use. They listen to their clients, to hear how they wish to inhabit their home, and develop their design accordingly. Green belt architects build effective relationships with the Local Planning Authority, community and others affected by their clients planning applications. Some green belt buildings are composed with energy efficiency and thermal comfort in mind, while the complex includes a zone for native flora, fruit trees, and vegetables to thrive. Certain factions within Parliament understand the pressing need for freeing up Green Belt land, particularly those areas that are a mere 45 minutes away from London and just a 10-minute walk from the train stations. A well-thought-out strategy appertaining to Green Belt Planning Loopholes can offer leaps and bounds in improvements.

When structural works are necessary to allow for property conversions in the green belt, proposals should be submitted to rectify the faults. Proposals should minimise the amount of demolition and rebuilding. For example, underpinnings will be preferable to demolition and rebuild, to ensure foundation support. The issue of Green Belt development is currently very topical and none more so than in and around London. A recent report ‘The Green Belt – A Place for Londoners?' issued by London First, Quod and SERC concluded that whilst much of London's Green Belt continues to play an important role it is not a “sacred cow”. Sustainability means reducing and/or offsetting the potentially negative impacts of developing land which has (in theory) been left open chiefly for social (recreational) and environmental benefit, by making positive additions to that land that did not exist before. The green belt has not stopped growth; it has just pushed it further out into rural areas not defined as green belt. Towns and cities grow by developing beyond their green belts and creating what we have come to term a commuter belt. The London commuter belt now arguably stretches from the Isle of Wight to Yorkshire. Locating new green belt development in or adjacent to settlements supports local services and reduces the need to travel. Furthermore, the attractiveness of the rural area can encourage inward investment within many rural settlements. An understanding of the challenges met by Green Belt Land enhances the value of a project.

Careful Planning Considerations

Where it has been concluded that it is necessary to release Green Belt land for development, plans should give first consideration to land which has been previously-developed and/or is well-served by public transport. By taking sustainability into account at the inception of a project and by working closely with the client and other members of the design team, green belt architects can maximise the opportunities for a sustainable design. Councils will consider redevelopment proposals of previously developed sites based on their impact upon the openness of the Green Belt and the purpose of including land within it. All applications will be judged on their merits on a case by case basis having regard to the adopted Development Plan and any other material planning considerations including national planning policy. You can discover supplementary details relating to Green Belt Architectural Businesses in this Open Spaces Society page.

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