Bryson's Fundamentalism: Famed Author Battles Home Building on Green Belts - and the Backlash

Everyone loves the English countryside. But does green belt preservation trump the pressing need for homes in the UK? Two writers spar over the question.

 

In discussing problems as significant as housing and green belt preservation, it stands to reason that passions would run deep. Writers Bill Bryson (Notes From a Small Island, In a Sunburned Country)  and Colin Wiles (housing writer for The Guardian) have disappointed no one in taking a strong stand in opposite corners of the verbal boxing ring.

 

The much beloved American writer who adopted the UK as a home decades ago, Bryson surprised many with his new swipes against portions of British pop culture such as reality TV stars and retail commerce. In the just-released The Road to Little Dribbling, Bryson reveals a not-so-surprising opinion, given his position as president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, that the green belts be saved from the creeping development overtaking much of the rest of the country. He argues that American city sprawl is evidence of an unrelenting human drive for those with money to overtake the verdant areas; he says the UK’s green belts make that available to all.

 

Developers in the UK, those who identify land investment opportunities for capital growth where homes can and need to be built, run up against this debate frequently. And it’s not just green belt land that many want to preserve – it’s the proverbial backyards of NIMBYism found everywhere, where new development is perceived as a threat to the status quo. Every community is right to question the effects of development – but when they do, they owe those land investors and homebuilders the opportunity to demonstrate what new residences can create. Very often that includes new infrastructure that not only includes roads, utilities and schools, but oftentimes they build public green space where none exists currently.

 

Wiles’ position is less “fundamentalist,” as he describes Bryson’s writings on the topic. “Suggest that just a small fraction of green belt land could meet our long-term housing needs and they accuse you of want to concrete over the whole of it,” he says. “In London, building on just 19,000 hectares of unattractive green belt land that is within a 10-minute walk of a station would provide almost a million high-density homes. Yet there are 100,000 hectares of green belt within the M25 alone.”

 

Given the high rents and unaffordable prices of homes to average workers in London – and the building of “iceberg homes” (expanding basements below grade to maximize use of land) in recent years – it seems the time has come to question the use of some of the green belt hectares.

 

Wiles has been writing in The Guardian regarding the rationale for rethinking green belts for some time. He makes a six-point argument as follows: (1) It’s not all green nor pleasant (much of it is poor quality scrubland); (2) It doesn’t actually stop cities [from] growing (commuter belts outside the rings develop eventually); (3) The countryside isn’t being concreted over (only 6.8% of the UK is built-upon); (4) It encourages inequality (he cites a London School of Economics professor who claims only the rich and absent investors can live in London’s home counties, while others must live further out); (5) It worsens the housing crisis (constrictions on land while the population grows is unsustainable); and (6) It’s partly why house prices are out of reach for so many (a simple constriction of supply in London, Oxford and Cambridge “denies decent homes to people on low-and middle-incomes and forces people into long commutes).

 

Those willing to make alternative investments into UK land for development are at the ready. They want to put their capital where homes will serve a need and can yield a good return on assets. Wiles’ argument for a middle ground position seems to agree with both the builders and the buyers.

 

It’s a gentlemen’s disagreement, and perhaps one that will never be fully settled. As the British economy continues to grow, and along with it the country’s population, it’s hard to see if Bryson’s absolutist argument (‘build exclusively on brownfields’) can endure.

 

One thing investors should not argue about is where to rationally put their money. It should be a reasoned decision made under the guidance of an independent financial advisor.