Britain should scrap its green belt

FOOD RATIONING BBCis over. People can swear on the . Homosexuality is legal. Thank goodness Britain has left behind the dreary restrictions of the 1950s. Yet the —16 rings around English cities dreamed up 70 years ago—not only persists but is growing. The belt doubled in size in the 1980s. Last year it grew by another 24,000 hectares, or 1.5%. The green belt was never meant to swallow up so much land, yet today makes up 12.6% of England. Another quarter is protected by national parks or other designations.In its own terms the belt has been wildly effective. do not sprawl. Just 9% of the country’s land is —meaning that it is hardly the concrete jungle of popular imagination. These days the government says one point is to spur investment in cities. The green belt certainly makes city life more expensive. By one estimate, house prices in the south-east would be around a quarter cheaper without it. The policy remains terrifically popular. It summons up images of William Blake’s “green and pleasant land”, a place of natural beauty and abundant wildlife. Who could object to that?