Building on Green Belt Land: How can architecture enhance biodiversity?
Habitat loss, global warming and increasing sea temperatures are leading to a scenario where natural resource depletion and carbon emissions are destabilising our planet’s natural systems. Evidence suggests that we will shortly be in a situation where environmental changes are out of our control.
The environmental changes we’re seeing on a global scale have been felt by the UK for centuries. The almost complete eradication of wildlife within our country has been progressing since medieval times. Several stages of biodiversity depletion and wildlife reduction have left us with areas of denuded and poor natural environment across the country.
But, what can we, as architects, do to help tackle this decline? Biodiversity and architecture may seem unconnected, but they are far from it: every decision we make as architects has an impact on the natural world around us. This article explores how we, at Pinchin Architects, believe that architecture and building design can enhance biodiversity, reduce species depletion and make the most of our green belt land.
The Green Belt & Biodiversity
The ‘natural’ environment that we experience here in the UK is generally far removed from a true natural state, having evolved and changed hugely - particularly since the Industrial Revolution. Pinchin Architects, based in Hertfordshire and working predominantly in London and the Home Counties, has a balanced perspective on the UK’s landscape: while much of our work is concerned with inner-city air quality and the complexities of high-density social housing, we equally work hard to ensure architectural designs for the ‘green belt’ (the ‘green’ fringe of towns, villages and countryside) are positively contributing to the preservation of and promotion of biodiversity.
The problem with concern about green belt land and its preservation is that, whilst usually green in colour and pleasing to the eye, green belt areas are largely grasslands or agricultural monoculture, containing almost zero biodiversity or habitat value for indigenous species. The hedgerows between the increasingly large mono-crop fields have long been seen as a saviour for our native birds and small mammals, but the reality is that these have become the last refuge of a very few species who were able to adapt to their changing environment and deal with the almost complete loss of their natural habitat in this country.
Green Belt Planning & Building Regulations
Planning regulations define the green belt and aim to protect these green areas from ‘urban sprawl’ or the outward expansion of several UK cities, the largest of which is the Metropolitan Green Belt around Greater London and its surrounding towns. In that aim, the regulations have been fairly successful: the definition between towns remains protected and a boundary is maintained between this huge conurbation and its satellite towns. As a result, and from a superficial perspective, many areas do look and feel ‘green’ and ‘rural’ - but, and here’s the key question: what value do these areas really have, other than being an aesthetically pleasing backdrop to commuter towns and villages?
There is, of course, an agricultural and food production value to maintaining land for working farms, which certainly make up a large proportion of this land - but there are also thousands of acres of under-productive land, poorly defined areas around towns, semi-industrial wasteland and huge swathes of underused areas of grassland that could be far better utilised.
Building on the Green Belt: A better solution to promoting biodiversity?
What is clear to us is that the green belt protection regulations are unsuccessful in the preservation of biodiversity in the green fringe. The green belt itself is a master- planning tool, not a protection or preservation tool. Supporters of the green belt may argue that the protections give local boroughs the necessary controls and stimulus to protect and enhance biodiversity, alongside providing other incentives for controlling building houses and infrastructure - but this is based on a false premise.
Support of the green belt and its building restrictions is based on the belief that the lack of something, namely housing, is the solution to our problems from an ecological perspective. In other words, if we stop building houses, we’ll be left with a better natural world at the end of the day, even if that natural world is a pastoral vision of country life.
In some senses, the construction industry (and house building is a significant contributor to the industry) is a large part of the problem, contributing to 40% of global CO2 emissions. But this does not mean that the problem is binary: stopping building on green belt land does not inevitably lead to enhanced biodiversity or a better natural environment.
Architectural Design For Enhanced Biodiversity
What is needed is a change to the green belt and its regulations, to coordinate and unify the metrics of finance and biodiversity, giving value to both redevelopment and species protection and enhancement.
The NPPF’s (National Planning Policy Framework) approach to housing in rural areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) is that exceptional houses are allowed in green belt areas, under Paragraph 79, if an exceptional design can be provided and substantiated. The substantiation needs to define and justify how the building will work within its landscape and work with the natural environment, from both a carbon reduction and sustainability perspective, as well as promoting biodiversity and ecology. Perhaps this approach could be expanded to larger developments and areas outside of AONB’s, so that the same level of justification, consideration and flexibility is applied to all planning decisions.
The core problem is that green belt planning regulations are often seen as a ‘100% yes’ or ‘100% no’ scenario - whereas in reality it should be more like ‘no, you can’t because it’s green belt’ or ‘yes, you can, but only if you can prove that, on balance, your development gives more back to the environment than it takes away’.
This more open approach requires architects and designers to better quantify their green belt building plans, particularly in relation to the benefits of the enhanced landscape and the increase in biodiversity that an eco-friendly architectural design can contribute. The green belt policy as it stands restricts, rather than encourages, and it is the core principle that continues to underpin and define many local planning processes, leaving us in a position of binary decision making as opposed to a decision where the weight of evidence can be taken into consideration.
Eco-Friendly Architecture Increases Green Belt Biodiversity
What we need is a better understanding and a more consistent quantification of the impacts of architectural design and building on the green belt and its biodiversity. Architectural practise needs to focus on environmentally friendly designs and planning regulations need to take into account the benefits that these designs can have.
A method of calculating the benefits a proposed build will have on the natural landscape, surrounding ecosystems and wider biodiversity is vital. These calculations need to then be made available to planners, who can assess and balance them against policy frameworks that focus more on the wider natural, social and financial benefits, as opposed to simply dismissing because a build is proposed for green belt land.
Biodiversity and housing development are not incompatible.
If you’re considering a green belt project or eager to engage further in the contribution architecture can have on the natural environment and our country’s biodiversity, we would love to continue the conversation. Please do get in touch with us.