§ Mrs.Helen JacksonTo ask the Secretary of state for the Environment what recent changes there have been to the planning policy guidance with relation to barn conversion in green belt designated areas.
§ Mr. BaldryNone. National policy is set out in planning policy guidance note 2, "Green Belts". Paragraph 16 of that document states that the re-use of redundant buildings in green belts should not be refused unless there are specific and convincing reasons which cannot be overcome by attaching conditions to the planning permission.
Paragraph 12 of PPG2 states that the general policies controlling development in the countryside apply with equal force in green belts. Thus conversion of redundant buildings in the green belt will be subject to the safeguards on re-use set out in paragraph 2.15 and annexe D of planning policy guidance note 7, "The Countryside and the Rural Economy".
Our consultation draft revision of PPG2, issued earlier this year, proposes removing the redundancy limitation from the PPG2 advice and we are currently analysing the more than 600 responses received to that document.