SALTFORD Environment Group has sent a postcard to the Prime Minister calling for the green belt to be protected from development.
The message was sent to Sir Keir Starmer to coincide with last month’s National Day for Action on Nature, Parks and Green Spaces, organised by the Community Planning Alliance.
The alliance was founded in 2021 by a group of local campaigners from around the UK who met on X (Twitter).
Its goal is to provide support, resources and training for grassroots campaign groups, and to lobby for the changes needed to put the environment and the climate crisis at the heart of decision-making.
Saltford Environment Group is currently campaigning to protect the green belt from development in the Bath & North East Somerset Council Local Plan, in which up to 1,650 new homes are proposed for potential sites in the village.
In its postcard to the Prime Minister, Saltford Environment Group states: “The Green Belt is the countryside next door for 30 million people; its protection is essential for supporting nature, our health and well-being, and the nation’s future food security.
“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment; it is not the other way round. Building homes near employment, not in the countryside and rural areas, is sustainable development in its truest sense. Homes for Everyone has proved the national housing target can be met without destroying the Green Belt.
“Please will you keep your promise to take a brownfield-first approach, to protect sensible use of the Green Belt, and that only genuine brownfield sites such as disused petrol stations and abandoned car parks will be developed, and there will be no “ploughing through farmland” to build the new homes the nation needs?
“Please ensure planning decisions on new housing developments are not made by developers whose interests are different from local communities that have to live with the consequences of poor planning decisions.
“We look forward to your response.”
Images: Saltford Environment Group
