Find out more about the Green Belt and Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) here.
BPT campaigns and advocates for the protection of the Green Belt.
The Bristol and Bath Green Belt has a prominent role in protecting the green setting of Bath and preventing unrestricted urban sprawl. It also plays an important role in Baths World Heritage Site designation. Bath’s Green Belt landscape includes improved grasslands and nature conservation sites which sustain biodiversity and ecology, and public rights of way which benefit access to nature and recreation. 72% of the Green Belt is in agricultural use.
Bath should be a World Heritage City existing in equilibrium within its luxuriant green setting. Despite the abundance and ever-present view of the tree filled skyline and canopy, the Green Belt and immediate rural environs are estimated to provide no more than 25% absorption capacity of annual carbon emissions produced in Bath. If equilibrium is to be reached, the carbon emissions produced by Bath and its rural surrounds should be fully offset. This will only be achievable through a rapid and persistent reduction in our carbon emissions – both direct and indirect, whilst protecting and extending the Green Belt and Bath’s green spaces. By understanding how much is absorbed by these important green spaces also makes their importance and value to us more significant.
Brownfield First
The biggest threat to Bath’s Green Belt is land allocation for new homes. To protect the value of the Green Belt BPT maintains an in-principle ‘Brownfield First’ position for land use allocation and development.
Development should be prioritised on existing brownfield land within the City, or else within the Housing Development/Infill Boundaries of villages and towns within the district. Brownfield sites offer the opportunity for the delivery of sustainably located housing and the regeneration and revitalisation of urban spaces whilst alleviating pressure on greenfield land.