Grey-belt test leaves England’s rural villages exposed.

A Green Belt assessment commissioned by Guildford Borough Council has exposed a fundamental rural flaw in national grey-belt policy.

AECOM examined 575 assessment areas across the borough. Its Table 3-4 records that 551 areas—95.8%, rounded to 96%—do not strongly contribute to purposes A, B or D. Since 17 August, those are the only Green Belt purposes used by the national grey-belt definition.

The reason matters far beyond Guildford. The report states that villages are “not considered for GBA purposes” under these tests. Purpose A concerns the sprawl of large built-up areas, Purpose B the merging of towns, and Purpose D the setting of historic towns. Purpose C—safeguarding the countryside from encroachment—is not part of the grey-belt definition.

Under the superseded definition, a separate Footnote 7 exercise reduced AECOM’s final classification to 120 grey and 307 provisional areas. The 17 August NPPF removed the Footnote 7 exclusion for heritage, habitat, landscape and flood-risk constraints from the grey-belt definition, widening the land capable of being labelled grey belt.

The consequence is already visible. Research published in October 2025 found that 16 of the first 20 major residential grey-belt appeals—schemes of ten homes or more—were allowed. Guildford Borough Council is updating its assessment, but the central village blind spot remains.

“Villages are not spaces between towns. When the test does not assess villages, omits countryside encroachment and strips Footnote 7 protections out of the definition, 96% of Guildford’s Green Belt areas meet its core threshold. That is not a tidy route to a few car parks and scrubby sites. It is a warning to rural England.”

Paula Moss · Founder of Rural ROAR and Vice Chair of Effingham Parish Council

Rural ROAR began with a parish councillor determined to rally her own council and work with parish councils, residents’ organisations and communities across England. On 26 August 2026, Effingham Parish Council adopted its founding resolution to join the campaign.

The campaign is calling for the Secretary of State to suspend the grey-belt test as applied to villages, including reliance on contested findings affecting open countryside around villages with a made Neighbourhood Plan and defined settlement boundary, pending policy reform and reassessment.

Rural ROAR also seeks reform so villages are included in the tests for sprawl, merging and historic setting, with Purpose C decisive for countryside encroachment, and legislation enabling qualifying parish councils to call in and decide applications that materially conflict with their made Neighbourhood Plans.

The 17 August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework changed the grey-belt definition after AECOM completed the Guildford report. Guildford Borough Council says an updated assessment will be published. Rural ROAR will update its evidence when that work appears; the central village blind spot remains in the current A/B/D test.