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n a press release, the Labour Party said that Starmer and deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner would today pledge to release some land currently classed as green belt to build homes.

The announcement said that pair would outline Labour’s plans to create a new class of “grey belt” land, which it described as "poor quality and ugly areas of the green belt".

The party would introduce five “golden rules” for grey belt development, the statement said.

The first stipulates that within the green belt, any brownfield land would have to be "prioritised for development” ahead of "grey belt" land.

“Grey belt" land would then be the second priority, the statement said, chosen ahead of "nature-rich, environmentally valuable land in the green belt”. At present, it said, the system fails to differentiate between the two.

The third and fourth rules state that where "grey" belt land is released, the plans must include the provision of at least 50 per cent affordable housing, while also boosting public services and local infrastructure.

Finally, the party said it had ruled out building on “genuine nature spots” and said plans for the development of grey belt land would be required to include “improvements to existing green spaces” and meet “high environmental standards”.

Starmer was due to say that the party “must be honest we cannot build the homes Britain needs without also releasing some land currently classed as green belt," the statement said.

According to the press release, Rayner was due to say that “much of the green belt isn’t green, rolling hills, but poor-quality scrub land, mothballed on the outskirts of towns. This grey belt land should not be off limits while local people are kept off the housing ladder.”

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Planning contacted the Labour Party to ask whether the speeches had yet been given, but had received no reply at the time of writing.

Commenting on the announcement, RTPI chief executive Victoria Hills said: "We understand we are facing a severe housing crisis, and there is an urgent need to build more homes. However, it's also important to understand the initial purpose of the green belt as a land management tool. Before we begin using new terms to describe this land, we need experts, such as planners, to clearly define what we mean by green belt, grey belt, and brownfield land, and to monitor its quality".

The area of land designated as green belt in England last year expanded for the second year in a row, growing by a total of 860 hectares to reach the highest level in over 20 years, according to last October’s annual local authority green belt statistical release from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

The increase means that 1,638,420 hectares, or 12.6 per cent of the land area of England, is now designated as green belt.

Green belt is spread around 15 cities, most of it near London, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires applicants to demonstrate “very special circumstances” to justify the grant of permission on green belt sites.

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