Planning and Development – Development Issues
Green Belt and the Flood Plain
The urban area of Spelthorne covers 35% of the Borough with the remaining 65% being Green Belt. In general, requests for development in the Green Belt will be refused, and in practice no one even requests planning permissions except in small exceptional cases such as the Swan Sanctuary. The protection of Green Belt status prevents any development in these undeveloped areas, the downside is that all development must take place in the remaining parts of the Borough. This means that all development is planned to take place in the third of the Borough that already has housing.
About 20% of the urban area is within the flood plain for a 1 in 100 year flood event: this means that the land is expected to flood once in 100 years. No further housing developments are generally allowed in the 1 in 100 year flood plain. At the moment about 5,600 units of housing are within this area, having been constructed when the controls were less stringent.