Councils have approved five times the number of new homes to be built on greenbelt land over the past five years, according to a new investigation.
The figures, obtained by the BBC, found planning permission was granted for 11,977 new homes on greenbelt land in 2014-15, compared to 2,258 homes in 2009-10.
Housing minister, Brandon Lewis, told the File on 4 programme: ‘Greenbelt is something that has been there to give a strategic protection to those green lungs. We have outlined what local areas need to do if they want to go through a review of their greenbelt.
‘It is very much a matter of those local authorities. They are the best placed people locally, democratically accountable locally, to decide where is the right location for any development.’
The programme also found 37% of Local Planning Authorities in England had housing allocations in or around Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
