The Sevenoaks Local Plan and Grey Belt

The Countryside Charity CPRE writes:

• To assure you that CPRE Kent will be responding to the Consultation on the Sevenoaks Local Plan. The CPRE Sevenoaks District Committee and the CPRE Kent Planners are already working on our comments. The CPRE response to the last plan was 21 pages long and I’m sure that the response this time will be equally robust.

• We at CPRE in Sevenoaks District are alarmed about the effect of the new ‘grey belt’ policy on our District’s countryside.

Part of Green Belt policy is ‘protecting the countryside from encroachment’ but the government says that that part of the policy cannot be taken into account in deciding what is or isn’t grey belt. The result is that the Sevenoaks Local Plan about to go for consultation says:

‘Due to the dispersed settlement pattern in this area, with many smaller settlements, villages and hamlets, much of the Green Belt in the District can be identified as grey belt (as the effect of the definition of grey belt is now to focus Green Belt protection on land near towns and large built-up areas).

That could mean a lot of our countryside being lost to development of all kinds. CPRE is lobbying government to change the policy.

Anyone in agreement with these concerns can make their views felt by signing the petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/725558

We would ask that if Parish Councils share these concerns, you encourage your Councillors and Residents to sign the petition.

Thank you