Jackson Ng at Growth, Infrastructure & Housing Select Committee, 17 March 2026

Land within certain protected designations in the green belt cannot be classified as grey belt. That protection comes from what we call footnote 7. Now the government's proposed NPPF 2025, which I think the consultation runs out on the 10th of March this year, proposes to remove footnote number 7 from the grey belt definition indefinitely. Now the Council's own grey belt assessment, as you mentioned earlier, has identified additional land across Buckinghamshire to be exposed to grey belt classification if that change presses forward. So I've got three questions which are linked to one another. First question is, now that the Council knows which specific parcels of Buckinghamshire's green belt would lose their footnote 7 protection, what is our strategy for protecting that land, and has it made formal representations to the government opposing that removal? Secondly, is can the Council confirm, either today or in writing to this committee, how many hectares of our green belt would be removed, would be moved from protected to potentially grey belt if footnote 7 was removed, and how many dwellings could those land be, in theory, be accommodated under the golden rules? And the last question, now the government argues that the residue NPPF protections, such as the National Landscape Policy and the major development test, provides adequate protection. Has the Council obtained, again, independent legal advice on whether that is actually the case? because once a site has been classified as grey belt, my understanding, it's subject to a presumption that's in favour of development under the golden rules, and that is materially a weaker position than the outright exclusion from grey belt status. Thank you.

If I may, Chair, so perhaps just try to take some of those in order.

From the Council or the Cabinet that if and when the Local Plan is in place, the Council's Planning Department will take our steps to fight speculative grey belt applications by developers. Thank you. So I'm not in a position to give a commitment of that nature, I'm afraid. That requires us, what we're required to under law is...

Why? What Green Belt we might or might not want to release? Then surely the Council's position would be whatever application comes in, we've got to defer to the local plan first. And therefore, any speculative applications that is not in conformity with the local plan will be resisted, in theory. And again, hopefully I've set out very clearly what I see as being the position when we have an up -to -date local plan.

Thank you very much for all the hard work on behalf of my residents on the local plan, the draft local plan and consultations, etc. I can see there's a lot of work that's gone into it and I know how important it is from a legal perspective and planning perspective that this needs to be done to protect our residents and the precious green belt that we have. What I wanted to talk about was the 95 ,500 homes target. Now I've been contacted by residents, a local community group, talking about this homes target, which is based on the government's standard method, which I understand can be challenged through examination through independent expert. The formula, I've been told and I've been lobbied by my residents, does not quite reflect Buckinghamshire's actual demographic picture. An aging population, outward migration of younger households and real infrastructure constraints. Now, my understanding is other authorities have successfully argued for lower demographics housing, lower figures in terms of demographics examination on exactly this basis. Has this council, have we looked at commissioning independent demographic analysis to make that case? And if not, why not? And can we commit to doing it before regulation 19 consultation in July? So that the inspector really has a properly evidenced alternative before them, rather than us simply accepting a target which, you know, the residents in Beckinsville and local community group has been calling excessive. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question. So, I'm...

Maybe I'm speaking out of line, but speaking on behalf of many councillors and planning committees and local ward councillors, I think a lot of us are feeling quite frustrated given the pressures, infrastructure pressures, including pressures. We're talking about waste being discharged in our local areas. I think a lot of us will argue actually we can't cope with much more. I'm saying I can't. I said some, right? Well, certainly the ones I've been speaking to. Now, we're concerned about that. So I think it would be good if your team would be able to report back to this committee and say, actually, once technical assessments have been done, have we got to this stage? And how are we going to approach that in relation to arguing the case that we can't accept 95 ,500 as a housing target? Thank you. And again, we'll be giving regular updates to this committee in terms of where we've got to.

I've just come to my knowledge that I have a penny application variation in place. I won't be asking questions, but I'd like to make that for transparency purposes.

And myself, thank you very much for your service to this committee. Thank you. Councillor Roberts. Yeah, I think in reply to your email that you sent around ahead of the committee, I...