The government have issued guidance to all local authorities on how many new homes they should be facilitating the building of over the next 5-30 years. Since they started this project I've worked for two social housing providers in two different parts of the country, but both heavily involved in the delivery of building the X amount of new homes.
The first local authority area I worked in, a city council, have made it clear that there is insufficient space within the city council limits to build the number of homes required but by the time I left had been told to find a way.
The local authority area I'm working in now have been told is a borough council, so not as big as the Warwick District Council area, have been told to build 16,500 homes. The area currently has around 48,000 homes. They advised the government that there wasn't the space in non-greenbelt areas to build that many and the response was along the lines of "not good enough, get rid of the greenbelt areas". Not working in the planning/maintenance side of the sector I have no idea what is going to happen next.
Whether we like it or not, the sad reality is that the green belt is going to vanish over the next 5-30 years. If Wasps' planning application is rejected the land will be used for housing eventually. That is the reality.
Always a Wasp