We often hear about the ‘green belt’ - but it doesn’t just refer to any old countryside.

Here, in the Garden of England, huge swathes of the county are designated as Metropolitan green belt or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs).

With the government still talking up housing targets and Labour eyeing planning reform, could we soon see hundreds of properties built on Kent’s protected landscapes?

Firstly, what is the green belt?

The term was coined in the late 19th century, but the green belt as it exists today was created by the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act under Clement Attlee’s Labour government.

The Act helped create the modern planning system, and allowed local authorities to designate land as green belt - where development is subject to much stricter rules and is often not allowed except in exceptional circumstances.

Intended to limit urban sprawl, it surrounds every major city in the UK - London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Bath, Cambridge, and others.

Because of the area’s proximity to London, the Metropolitan green belt extends into much of Kent.

We have a lot to thank it for, according to Dr Hilary Newport, director of countryside charity CPRE Kent.

She told KentOnline: “We’ve got a densely populated and finite island, and we still have some really amazing landscapes and scenery, and it’s because of planning controls like green belt that we still have those.”

Where is Kent’s green belt?

Kent’s official green belt land is concentrated in the west of the county, closest to the capital. Sevenoaks district, bordering the London Borough of Bromley, has the most green belt - with 93% of the district covered.

Gravesham, Tonbridge & Malling, Dartford, Tunbridge Wells, Medway and Maidstone are also partly covered - with Maidstone having the least at 1.3% of its land.

Kent’s other six districts have no designated green belt at all.

Dr Newport added: “Lots of people live in our quite dense cities. About 30 million-plus people have the green belt as their countryside next door.

“Green belt is more than usually accessible. It has more kilometres of public rights of way, for example, than ordinary unprotected countryside. It’s close to urban centres, so it’s exactly where people need to get it so that they get access to nature.”

What about Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty?

It’s not only official green belt land in Kent which is protected, however. There are also AONBs, designated by Natural England.

The concept was enshrined in law in the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, also under the Attlee government.

Kent has two such reserves. One is the High Weald, which covers part of west Kent as well as East Sussex and Surrey.

The other is the Kent Downs, which begin in the rural areas of Bromley - itself once part of Kent - and snake all the way down throughout the county from Sevenoaks to Dover.

AONBs - currently being rebranded as National Landscapes - are less heavily regulated than the green belt.

However, it’s still much harder to get permission for development in AONBs than it would be in a town centre.

Have any AONBs been built on in Kent?

In April last year, housing secretary Michael Gove overturned the approval for a plan for 165 homes at Turnden, near Cranbrook, in the High Weald AONB. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council initially green-lighted the scheme in January 2021 - but that April then-housing secretary Robert Jenrick ‘called-in’ the decision, so central government would make the call rather than the council.

A government planning inspector recommended the secretary of state approve the plans, but minister Rachel Maclean decided on behalf of Mr Gove to refuse the plans. A decision notice explained that Mr Gove thought the “generic suburban nature” of the designs weren’t up to scratch to be built in the High Weald AONB.

Meanwhile, in July last year, Chapel Down got final approval for a new winery on the outskirts of Canterbury, in the Kent Downs AONB.

The £32 million scheme was embattled with objectors threatening a judicial review, leading to Canterbury City Council eventually quashing their own decision to back it.

The proposals went back to the planning committee, where Katie Miller of the Kent Downs Trust argued: “The expansion of the wine industry is neither a national nor local priority reflected in planning policy and the benefits could be delivered by development outside of the AONB.”

However, the committee voted to allow the development.

Could Kent’s green belt be extended?

In short, it’s not likely.

The boundaries of the green belt are altered by the Local Plan process - which councils use to create a blueprint for the building of homes in their districts over a long period.

Through this process, councils technically could expand the green belt, but if it would impede them meeting housing targets, the Local Plan can be rejected by the government.

If a council doesn’t have a government-accepted Local Plan, it is placed into “presumption in favour of sustainable development.” In practice, this means that councils have to accept development they would otherwise refuse, for example if it encroaches into an AONB.

So, attempts to extend Kent’s green belt at the expense of housing delivery could backfire, and end up forcing councils to accept development they would like to refuse.

On January 9, a petition signed by 2,900 people was presented to Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council calling for an extension of the green belt to include land between West Malling and Kings Hill.

Cllr David Thornewell of East Malling & Larkfield Parish Council told TMBC’s cabinet: “What our parishes are concerned about [...] is ending up with a very expanded King’s Hill filling in the land between East and West Malling – these need to be distinctive villages.”

TMBC cabinet member for housing Cllr Kim Tanner (Con) even told the meeting: “We talk very often about the prospect of ‘King’s Malling’ becoming a reality, and it’s a real concern for everybody.”

That night the cabinet voted to ensure that “all policy options continue to be explored to protect green belt land”, but could not vote to extend the green belt to the areas in question.

Will Kent’s protected landscapes be built on?

The pressure for thousands more homes to be built in every Kent district is unrelenting.

In December, Michael Gove officially watered down housing targets for councils, making them “advisory.” However, he added local authorities “must provide rigorous evidence justifying their departure from assessed housing needs,” meaning they will still be held to targets unless they can convince the government of their reason for not meeting them.

KentOnline revealed in October that authorities across the county need to get 1,000 new homes a month built to meet current targets.

On January 10, Sevenoaks District Council (SDC) closed its consultation on their Local Plan - which says the leafy locale must build an extra 10,680 homes, or 712 a year, from 2025-2040.

In June 2023, SDC already approved a huge 950-home development in Sevenoaks Quarry, which is entirely within green belt land.

The proposals were met with objections from more than 150 residents. However, at the meeting where it was decided, a planning officer described the district’s lack of housing supply as “chronic and acute”.

One of the possibilities in SDC’s local plan is a whole new settlement at Pedham Place - near Eynsford and Farningham - of 2,500 homes, a school and medical facilities.

“Unfortunately in places like Sevenoaks the need for affordable housing is very real and very great...”

The entire site for the new settlement is within both the Kent Downs AONB and the Metropolitan green belt.

But campaigners question whether these new homes will be within the budgets of the average family.

Dr Newport said: “Unfortunately in places like Sevenoaks the need for affordable housing is very real and very great.

“Demand from market price housing is limitless because there will always be people with very deep pockets who are able to snap up executive homes that are built on beautiful green belt sites.”

The government remains officially committed to 300,000 new houses being built a year, and with much of our county covered by protected landscape of one sort or another, it seems likely that every Kent council will have to develop that land to meet their targets.

“I think that if the government - or any government off whatever colour - remains committed to a target of 300,000 homes a year then that can really only be delivered with some serious state intervention,” Dr Newport added.

“The only time the country has ever come close to delivering 300,000 was back in the 50s and 60s when there was a wholesale program of council housing and social housing.

“As the CPRE we’re the organisation that keeps saying don’t use the green belt, use brownfield sites wherever possible, because we cannot trust the system to deliver affordable homes by releasing green belt sites.”

You can read all our Spotlight on Housing features here.

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