JIMMY Reid says green belts are lungs without which cities would suffocate (March 4). There are countless cities without belts which, far from suffocating, are very healthy and attractive, Dundee, Cardiff, and Swansea in the UK, and Toronto, Sydney, Stockholm, Lyon, and Singapore abroad, are a few examples.
Glasgow and Edinburgh have high levels of air pollution and much of their open land is within or beyond their green belts. They do not need these. By forcing much new housing into outlying towns and villages dependent on cities for jobs and services, belts have greatly increased travel by car and therefore pollution and congestion.
By restricting land supply property prices have been raised and the least affluent denied homes where they wish to live. Cramming and the erection of homes on parks and even school playing-fields has been encouraged.
It is because of its green belt that Glasgow has such a high number of high-rise flats which have exacerbated its social problems.
Green belts have sometimes protected attractive countryside but have also sterilised valuable land near roads, railways, and employment areas which is visually unattractive and inaccessible for recreation. Huge losses of local taxes have resulted. Housing which could have been built there has instead gone into rural areas, swamping villages and ruining their character. East Lothian is an example. Its council is a strong critic of the green belt because of this.
A study by the LSE of the Reading Belt found that the overall cost of this is 14% of total city incomes. The benefits accrue mainly to the richest 20% and the poor gain hardly at all.
Most of those who support green belts are well-off and well-housed. Their wish is to enhance their property values by preventing others having what they own themselves.
I do not know of residents of Easterhouse, Drumchapel, Milton, or Wester Hailes marching in support of green belts. Probably they would prefer to see these used for the provision of jobs and services. Belts increase social inequality.
John Munro,
56 Springfield Road,
Bishopbriggs.
March 4.
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