Andy Burnham has the chance to unlock at least 4.6 million new homes by releasing targeted areas of green belt land which don’t serve its fundamental purpose, according to a new report from the Centre for Policy Studies.
‘The Future of the Green Belt’ by Robert Colvile and Dr Samuel Hughes is built on a full spatial survey of England’s 16 Green Belts, conducted by Create Streets.
The survey – the most complete yet carried out on the type and quality of green belt land – has identified swathes of previously developed or low-quality land within a 15-minute walk of existing railway lines.
The report reveals that England has 33,000 hectares of unprotected low-quality agricultural land and 115,000 hectares of unprotected medium-quality land near existing rail infrastructure. If developed to the Government’s minimum density, this would be enough for almost 700,000 homes and 2.4 million homes respectively – or more if ministers restored the density standards in their previous version of the planning framework.
In particular, there is space in the London green belt near existing railway infrastructure for an additional 1.1 million homes at low suburban densities – a new Metroland mirroring the beloved and beautiful housing that stretched out from London along the railway lines a century ago.
Robert Colvile is Head of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the Centre for Policy Studies, as well as a columnist for The Sunday Times. In September 2026 he stepped down as Director of the CPS and Editor-in-Chief of CapX, having served in both roles since 2017. In December 2019 he took a leave of absence to work as one of the authors of the Conservative Party's election manifesto, which also contained a range of policies advocated by the CPS.
Samuel Hughes is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, having previously been Head of Housing between October 2022 and March 2025. He is an editor at Works in Progress and a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Previously, he worked with Policy Exchange, Create Streets, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
