For a landowner, getting permission to develop land in the green belt would be considered a long-term prospect at best. More recently, land classified as grey belt carries a presumption in favour of development for housing. LANDCLAN’s Grey Belt Report provides landowners with all the evidence they need to prove entitlement to presumptive planning permission.
Using a Large Language Model (LLM) to join hundreds of relevant but unrelated datasets LANDCLAN has identified 104,000 sites that meet the definition of grey belt in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Out of the long list 13,000 are ‘ideal’ sites that are not in local plans and have no environmental, flood, habitat or historic constraints.
The NPPF states: “For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the green belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes …of the green belt
- to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas.
- to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another.
- to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment.
- to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and
- to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
How does LANDCLAN make it easier to unlock development potential?
- Sites are within 250m of existing built up area for sustainability
- Tags a site with risk of city sprawl and merging towns
- Existing land use makes regeneration desirable
Landowners can enhance their chances of getting planning permission by getting the LANDCLAN Grey Belt Report for their land. This detailed report includes maps and plans showing how the land qualifies as Grey Belt according to the NPPF and other planning constraints such as flooding and AONB.
LANDCLAN & BNGAI™ help small-scale developers meet biodiversity requirements quickly with affordable AI-powered biodiversity assessments.
Learn more at BNG.AI
Self-builders and small-scale developments
LANDCLAN’s research shows that there are 4,038 sites suitable for small-scale development of 1-5 residential units.
These small, privately held land parcels would suit self-build. Self-build is attractive in these conditions because it is a construction method that commands premium land prices from lifestyle buyers. Or the self-builders are prepared to overcome problems that make sites unattractive to commercial builder such as installing off-grid power and water systems which can be more expensive than connecting to mains. In which case the landowner benefits from being able to sell the land at all.
LANDCLAN is able to offer no-cost promotion agreements to landowners who want to explore the possibility of getting their land designated as Grey Belt for development. Services include submitting planning applications and marketing the permitted site to our extensive network of buyers in the self-build community and developers.
