Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to protect (a) green belt and (b) open green spaces in (i) Dudley, (ii) the Black Country and (iii) the West Midlands.

As pledged in the Collation Agreement, this Government has safeguarded national Green Belt protection and increased protection of important green spaces.

We have abolished the Labour Government’s top-down Regional Strategies which sought to delete the Green Belt in and around 30 towns and cities. I would note that the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Phase Two Revision Report of the Panel published by the Government Office for the West Midlands in September 2009, was pushing for a number of adverse changes to Green Belt protection – that no doubt would have been implemented had the Labour Government not been ejected from office in 2010. I also observe that the hon. Member was a DCLG Minister and the ‘Regional Minister for the West Midlands’ at the time of that Government-issued report.

We have also:

• Introduced a new Local Green Space planning designation, which allows councils to give added protection to valuable local green spaces;

• Published the National Planning Policy Framework which re-affirms Green Belt protection;

• Given councils stronger powers to tackle ‘garden grabbing’, and stopped gardens being classified as brownfield land;

• Issued new waste planning policy which increases protection of the Green Belt;

• Published planning guidance which re-affirms the importance of the Green Belt during Local Plan preparation; and

• Consulted on proposed changes to planning policy on traveller sites to further increase Green Belt safeguards.