Telegraph
People should be able to vote on whether to build on the green belt in their local areas, a housing minister has said.
Esther McVey MP, Minister of State for Housing and Development, told Conservative Party Conference that the protected land could be built on if local communities voted for it.
She told an event hosted by the Tax Payers’ Alliance: “I would put it to the local community and ask them whether they think their green belt is car parks and whether it should be classed as green belt at all. Then we can reclassify and build on it.
“I don’t believe in statist top down policy, I believe in going from the ground up”.
This idea appears to be a departure from her department’s green belt policy….
This was Taxpayers Alliance Policy since 2017. I cant see how a Green Belt composed only through l;ocal mandates is compatible with the 1955 principle of a national policy of preventing urban sprawl. A wholly bottom up Green Belt is licensened Nimbyism. The CPRE should be appalled.
How can a ‘bottom up’ Green Belt be compatible with exceptional circumstances deletions in Local Plans where housing is for a STRATEGIC purpose. Does Mc Vey even know the meaning of the word strategic?
Of course if it were ‘ca parks’ its a brownfield site in the Green Belt and can be built on already..
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions 
I suppose the idea is that Neighbourhood Fora could vote to release small parcels of land from the green belt for development? The policy is not dissimilar to the current policy dispensation that allows agricultural buildings to be re-developed for housing. It’s essentially a policy hand-out that benefits a few Tory landowners while still maintaining the fundamental barriers to house building imposed by the 1947 and 1955 Acts.