Planning principles and particular places: planners’ and campaigners’ perspectives on motivations for popular support of the green belt

With many countries around the world facing deepening housing crises and searching for ways of increasing the public acceptability of new house building, academics, planners, and policy makers have generally focused on the material, economic motivations of campaigners and the public in opposing development. This article, which focuses on the green belt planning policy in England, but with wider relevance for house building internationally, argues that whilst considerations of material ‘property’ are sometimes a poignant motivation for campaigners, planners identified more normative concerns surrounding the ‘fear of change’ as equally important. Alongside campaigners themselves, planners stressed the importance of general planning ‘principles’, especially protection of the countryside and green belt, as well as local, ‘place’ concerns about development ‘changing the character’ of an area and its effects on local facilities/services. The article reflects on the need for planners and policy makers to pay more attention to principles and place attachment in policy formulation regarding house building, whilst more effective integration of different aspects of the planning system is needed to address campaigners’ more materialistic concerns about the effects of development on local services.