Guildford Council questions NPPF and “Grey Belt Rules”

The full Guildford Council Meeting 3^rd November 2026 debated a motion that requests the government to reconsider how the GreyBelt rules are implemented in the borough.  There was a very positive debate in the Council and after accepting an amendment the motion as set out below was adopted.  The debate can be seen on the WebCast of the Council meeting on the GBC Website

The Society is supportive of this motion as the current Greenbelt Assessment by allocating 90% plus of land in the GBC area to Grey Belt status effectively removes GreenBelt from the borough.  If the government is intent on removing Green Belt it should be honest about what and why it adopting this measure and not use spurious examples such as redundant petrol stations.  See also our comments on the Green Belt Grey Belt issue on linked post below.

The Approved Motion

“This Council notes that:

1. Recent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework allow the potential for large-scale development on Green Belt land that is deemed ‘grey belt’.
2. The ‘grey belt’ definition excludes Green Belt land that makes a significant contribution to:
   • Check the unrestricted sprawl of large built- up areas.
   • Preventing towns from merging.
   • Preserve the setting and character of historic towns or protecting their character.

It fails to include purpose C which ‘assists in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment’ and has removed the word ‘villages’ from any description. Our villages are now wide open for development.

3. Over 90% of Green Belt within Guildford borough now constitutes grey belt under the NPPF, despite significant contributions to Green Belt purposes, according to the independent AECOM assessment commissioned by Guildford Borough Council.
4. Housing targets calculated by the standard method require 27,740 new homes in West Surrey over 5 years, with Guildford borough’s annual target having doubled from 562 to 1,170, with no flexibility in these targets in response to constraints and issues arising from flood risk, protected habitats and landscapes, or infrastructure constraints.
5. A local authority being unable to meet the new housing targets, in the form of a 5-Year Housing Land Supply from an up-to-date Local Plan, is the trigger that enables the possibility of grey belt development.
6. National legislative changes to the Local Plan making process have prevented local authorities, including Guildford, from starting on new Local Plans until this autumn while also requiring the Local Plan making process to take 30 months.
7. A significant proportion of land in Guildford borough lies beyond the Green Belt and demonstrates the scale of overdevelopment which can occur without Green Belt protections.

This Council resolves to:

1. Rapidly progress work to develop and adopt an evidence based Local Plan for Guildford Borough that has the full support of, and will be completed by, West Surrey Unitary Authority.
2. Ensure the Urban Capacity Study and the updated Brownfield Land Register are used, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that brownfield sites borough-wide are 12 identified early in GBC’s spatial planning strategy and brought forward for development in line with the Government’s commitment to Brownfield First.
3. Affirm a belief in the importance of providing genuinely affordable housing to meet clearly evidenced local need (such as that identified in adopted neighbourhood plans) but without creating harmful and unsustainable impacts on infrastructure, communities, greenfields, and wildlife habitats arising from overdevelopment.
4. Request the Leader of the Council to call upon the Government to:

1. Suspend the grey belt rules for land separating or within villages pending completion of all Local Plans;
2. Amend the NPPF to prevent villages from merging and maintain their separation through green and blue gaps whilst preserving and protecting their character, landscape and historical setting from being identified as grey belt;
3. Adopt measures within the planning framework that enable planning authorities to hold those developers to account to deliver schemes for which they have already received permission to build and to prevent ‘land banking'.
4. As a result of this, given the number of permissions as yet undelivered in our Borough, modify Guildford’s housing targets downwards taking into account our significant local constraints.
5. Reinstate Footnote 7 into the NPPF so that the Government clearly demonstrates its commitment to recognising and protecting land with special designations, in particular those dedicated to nature recovery and the national landscape.

8. Invite our local MPs, parish councils, residents’ associations and community groups to support this motion.”