The Gloucester and Cheltenham Green Belt is a

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which ...

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

and planning policy that regulates the rural space throughout mainly the

South West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

region of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is completely within the county of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. Essentially, the function of the designation is to prevent further convergence between the conurbations of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

and Cheltenham. It is managed by local planning authorities on guidance from central government.

Geography

Land area taken up by the green belt is , 0.05% of the total land area of England (2010). It is mainly within

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Ri ...

district, with small portions within the fringes of the Cheltenham and

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jura ...

districts.

Innsworth Innsworth is a suburb of Gloucester, it is also a civil parish and forms part of the borough of Tewkesbury, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 2,468. It contains Imjin Barracks, the h ...

is the largest community within the green belt. Landscape features and facilities within the area include Staverton Airport, Cheltenham Racecourse, rivers Chelt, Swilgate and Hyde Brook,

Imjin Barracks Imjin Barracks is a military installation situated near Innsworth in Gloucestershire that is home to NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). The Barracks were named after the Battle of the Imjin River because of the connection with the Glo ...

and MOD Boddington, several parks and woods, Briarfields campsite, Churchdown and Crickley hills, and the Church of the Holy Trinity in Badgeworth. Much of the boundary is formed by local roads such as the A38 and the M5. The green belt lies next to the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Due to it lying across the Gloucester-Cheltenham metropolitan area, responsibility and co-ordination lies with local

unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigrou ...

and district councils as these are the local planning authorities.

History

The green belt was first drawn up in 1968 with the Gloucestershire Development Plan. The Gloucestershire County Structure Plan in 1981 extended this to include an area north of Cheltenham to protect the green space between Cheltenham and

Bishop's Cleeve Bishop's Cleeve is a large village and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham. The village lies at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds. Bishop's Cleeve ...

. No portion was defined within Gloucester as the city boundary is drawn tightly around the urban area.

References

External links

Interactive map of green belt land
{{Green belts (United Kingdom) Green belts in the United Kingdom Environment of Gloucestershire Gloucester Cheltenham

Geography

History

See also

References

External links