Local Green Belt landscape at risk

Land at Greenlands Farm has been offered for sale as a ‘strategic development opportunity’, despite being Green Belt, working floodplain, a potential mineral zone, and an important element of Thames riverside landscape.

This is part of the remaining farmland which separates Weybridge from Walton — a significant piece of local countryside, with traditional hedgerows and field pattern. The farmland helps define the local landscape, and is included in the Strategic View from historic Oatlands Park, and the Thames Landscape Strategy.

This farmland also serves an essential function as a working floodplain. The underlying gravel,  linked to the Thames by underground aquifers,  helps absorb floodwater , which rises in the fields when the Thames is flowing high, as the attached picture shows.

PP&DRA first raised local concerns about development ambitions for this land back in 2005, on the front page of our newsletter.

As Green Belt with exceptional landscape value, and working floodplain, this land should be safe from development. There would be an outcry in the local community if serious plans for developing this land were ever to be put forward.