Green belt calculations in The Times

The Times, reporting on the 300,000 new homes to be built on the greenbelt, referenced ASI figures featured in our paper The Green Noose.

The Times reported:

"Paul Cheshire, a former government planning adviser, said that green belts benefited a small number of wealthy people and confined millions of poorer families to increasingly overcrowded cities. The Adam Smith Institute think tank calculated last year that a million homes could be built on the outskirts of London, within walking distance of a railway station, by sacrificing 3.7 per cent of the capital’s green belt."

The Times later reported in a leader story:

"The belief that the green belt is sacrosanct is one of the great shibboleths of our time. The Adam Smith Institute has calculated that a million homes could be built around London with the loss of only 3.7 per cent of its green belt."