Gordon E. Cherry

Abstract

Green belt literature is extensive. Geographers and planners alike have written at length, focussing on the subject in great detail. Green Belt plans have been prepared in large numbers. The designation and subsequent protection of green belts constitute a major feature in British land use planning; perhaps they are the largest spatial element to have been injected into metropolitan land use, through consistent application of determined policy, during the post war period. Green belts are both praised and derided; to some they are the jewels in the planner's crown, while to others they are no more than an intellectual fashion where objectives have long since lost their original purpose. .For a Geography Seminar this paper is pertinent, therefore, though its coverage can only be modest; it is simply directed towards assisting a Polish understanding of what is essentially a British planning device. There are three main sections:

• the context: the geography of the urban fringe,
• history: the development of the green belt in practice,
• evaluation: an indication of the merits and disadvantages of the green belt.

Gordon E. Cherry, Department of Geography and Centre for Regional and Urban Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK