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Choosing the right London Architects can be a disheartening task. That's why we've written this comprehensive blog post with these helpful tips.

It is clear that we are faced with the prospect of our Green Belts continuing to be chipped away for unsuitable housing, while swathes of land that has already been built on lies wasted and under-used and the housing crisis continues. Wider strategic planning in the UK seems to have gone out the window, and there is no accepted strategic approach that encompasses both City and Countryside. New Towns and Garden Cities are back on the agenda. Anyone involved during the design, construction, operations or maintenance timelines serves to gain valuable knowledge and understanding about net zero-energy and energy efficiencies. Even those who use the facility are able to make connections, and learn to limit their personal energy use. Greenbelts have been a mainstay planning approach to manage urban development and protecting farmland and natural areas for more than one hundred years. Defined as natural areas and open lands surrounding cities, towns or regions, greenbelts often contain a combination of public and private lands on which there are development restrictions. The strategy of many green belt architects considers sustainable design from the onset, often with subtle solutions which are integrated into the architecture itself. They are committed to designing modern, sustainable and low carbon buildings of lasting quality. Development in the green belt should respect local patterns of scale, proportion and density and avoid the introduction of suburban-style developments into the rural environment.



Green belt architectural businesses look forward to maintaining a high standard of service to their clients and to creating new working relationships in the ever more challenging world faced by property developers and designers. The UK's desperate need for new housing cannot all be accommodated on brownfield sites, or indeed, on greenfield sites outside the green belt. From an environmental and practical perspective, they should be located close to existing infrastructure – otherwise all you are doing is leapfrogging the green belt and forcing people into long commutes, mostly by car, which flies in the face of climate change, air quality and zero-carbon commitments. A lot of green belt consultancy practices also work collaboratively with other industry leading specialists. Issues of usability and practicality inform their approach and have increasingly led to an appreciation of the need for an integrated, consensus based, design process. As architects, green belt planners work collaboratively with people, whether individual clients, community groups, educational establishments, companies, builders or developers, to support them in creating new buildings and to improve existing ones. A well-thought-out strategy appertaining to Green Belt Planning Loopholes can offer leaps and bounds in improvements.

Appropriate Green Belt Land

We know that Green Belts can produce or contribute to lower temperatures and mitigate heat waves, with an extremely important role in building urban resilience. They are biodiverse ecosystems and provide places for recre- ation, exercise and enjoyment. Obtaining planning permission on green belt locations is notoriously difficult, but not impossible, and there are a lot of costly issues to deal with before the land is purchased for development. As well as working on a range of developments within the Green Belt a core element of a specialist architect's experience is submitting planning applications and obtaining valuable planning permission for replacement dwellings and house extensions. The natural environment is constantly subject to change influenced by both natural processes and human impact. To ensure that the character and biodiversity of areas are maintained it is important to plan and manage at a landscape scale. Whilst some approaches to the design of sustainable buildings are focused almost exclusively on energy consumption, truly sustainable buildings are also healthy, economically viable spaces and places. Can New Forest National Park Planning solve the problems that are inherent in this situation?

A local council will seek to support the rural economy by promoting rural diversification and facilitating job creation by encouraging development of an appropriate type and scale. Many buildings today are built using procurement routes where the architect’s domain of influence is deliberately limited. Materials and details may have to be chosen shrewdly if they are to survive cost cutting or the passing of control to other hands. Green Building represents one of the most significant and exciting opportunities for sustainable growth on both a national and a global scale. The design of our built environment impacts us all, as well as our economies and the natural environment. There are 14 Green Belt areas in England, and one around Cardiff in Wales with two more areas proposed in Wales. National planning policy for Green Belt can be found in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in England and in Planning Policy Wales (PPW). Architects and planning consultants specialising in Green Belt land developments can collaborate with you to create designs that respond to the landscape, with the aim of enhancing rather than detracting from the surroundings. Formulating opinions on matters such as GreenBelt Land can be a time consuming process.

Community Engagement

The green belt has been one of the UK’s most consistent and successful planning policies. Over the past century, it has limited urban sprawl and preserved the countryside around our cities, but is it still fit for purpose in a world of unprecedented urban growth and potentially catastrophic climate change? There are many benefits to appointing green belt architects and it is important to ensure you hire the right professional for your project. Planning is not a ‘protected profession’: anyone, from Architects and Surveyors to home improvement companies may claim to offer planning services. By hiring chartered planning consultants however you will receive advice which is ‘quality assured’ by the Royal Town Planning Institute, the professional body for planning. England’s green belts have had, and continue to have, a major impact on town planning. The idea of a ring of countryside surrounding an urban area to prevent sprawl originated in the 1930s and spread to post-war London and was adopted nationally in 1955. Today, about 13% of England is green belt land. London’s Green Belt covers 66 local authorities, but there is no formal planning mechanism that requires a review of land use beyond the GLA boundaries to meet London’s overspill housing need, or a single body that is responsible for ensuring that development across London’s hinterland is aligned with existing and planned infrastructure. This makes implementing mechanisms such as Green Belt swaps much more challenging, and ultimately limits the potential of the planning system to meet the sustainability goals outlined in the NPPF. Green architecture can be wonderful examples of the possibility of humans living harmoniously within the environment. The opportunities exist to design beautiful, energy efficient and environmentally friendly residences and workplaces that demonstrate our human ability to adapt to and peacefully live within the ecology of the natural world. Taking account of Architect London helps immensely when developing a green belt project’s unique design.

The green belt policy is not without its criticisms. These have included concerns that it has limited the availability of land, pushed up the cost of new housebuilding and contributed to a crisis of supply and affordability that is affecting millions across the UK’s towns and cities. While the green belt remains an enduringly popular policy, and has prevented urban sprawl, it is not cost free. The opportunity cost of the green belt is a lack of developable land, resulting in less homes being built and higher prices. New houses in the UK are about 40 per cent more expensive per square metre than in the Netherlands, despite there being 20 per cent more people per square kilometre there than in England. Proposals should be supported by an up to date ecological assessment. Any harmful ecological impacts should be avoided through the design, layout and detailing of development with mitigation, or compensation (including off-site measures) where other methods are not possible. The very special circumstances that prevent development on Green Belts could include rural diversification opportunities that will help provide lasting public benefits across more than one of the following; leisure and recreation, local food production, biodiversity, education, health and wellbeing. Our Green Belt policy deserves more than the knee-jerk “preserve at all costs” reaction the government has to any suggestion of reform. let’s be more rational, and more realistic. Why can’t we talk more rationally about the Green Belt? Clever design involving Net Zero Architect is like negotiating a maze.

Buildable Potential

The concept of Green Belt has strong support amongst the general public, even if they do not always understand the full details of the planning policy. Planning permission for green belt properties may be granted for development proposals that do not have a significant adverse impact on the amenity of nearby residents or occupiers, taking into account potential mitigation measures. The whole movement of sustainable architecture sees themselves as stewards of the environment. They believe that it’s up to the human race to protect the earth and along with it, all of humankind. Discover supplementary insights appertaining to London Architects on this House of Commons Library web page.

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