Green Belt

Nicky Gavron AM moved, and Léonie Cooper AM seconded the following motion:

“The London Assembly recognises the role played by our visionary forebears in the London County Council in the 1930s in creating the Metropolitan Green Belt around London, further established in the Greater London Plan of the 1940s, and the success of this policy in preventing urban sprawl and promoting sustainable regeneration of London. The Assembly notes that Green Belt protection has been an important continued policy in London, supported by the London Planning Advisory Committee through the 1990s, and then in successive Mayors’ London Plans, from 2004 to 2011 to the present day.

The Assembly welcomes this Mayor’s firm statements on protecting London’s Green Belt and the policies in his new London Plan, but calls on him to work with his different departments in City Hall, in the functional bodies, with local authorities, landowners and stakeholders, not only to protect but to enhance the Green Belt. This means promoting its multifunctional uses and benefits and improving access to it, so that it can be enjoyed by a greater number of Londoners for years to come and so that it helps the city tackle the Climate Emergency and ecological decline we face.

The Assembly also calls on the Mayor to lobby Government to update national planning policy to reflect the role Green Belts have in adapting to and mitigating the impact of climate change and improving urban and ecological resilience.”

Following debate, and upon being put to the vote, the motion was agreed unanimously.