Green Belt land for houses
Sunday 14th November, 1999
John Prescott, for whom Environment Secretary is one of several ministerial jobs, has given the go-ahead for developers to send bulldozers onto the green belt land and build 10,000 houses, raising the size of Stevenage by a third, almost joining it to neighbouring Hitchin.
Prescott's decision last year seemed to prove it had not been a Freudian slip when he had declared: 'The greenbelt is a Labour achievement, and we plan to build on it.'
Stevenage is the biggest development on greenbelt land Prescott has given the thumbs up to, but not the only one. He has approved building on large tracts of greenbelt land to the north of Newcastle, and has forced an extra 12,800 houses on to a reluctant West Sussex.