TP Explainer: Solihull’s Draft Rural Settlement Hierarchy Assessment

SMBC

Solihull Council is currently consulting on a study of its settlement hierarchy with a view to reclassifying some of its settlements to assist the Council in resisting future development pressures in areas of the Borough that are currently designated as Green Belt.

The Council proposes redefining four of its villages as towns to ‘maintain the integrity of the Borough’s Green Belt’ and afford the settlements protection from recent changes to national planning policy that have made it easier to release such land for development.

Under national policy changes made in December 2024 (National Planning Policy Framework/ NPPF) Green Belt development can be viewed as ‘not inappropriate’ if it meets various criteria, including that it would use ‘grey belt’ land. The government has committed to building 1.5 million homes nationally by 2029 and introduced the concept of lower quality Green Belt land being designated ‘grey belt’ as a way to do this.

Grey belt land is defined by the NPPF as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that does not strongly contribute to the following three Green Belt purposes: checking the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas (purpose ‘a’); preventing neighbouring towns merging into one another (purpose ‘b’); and/or preserving the setting and special character of historic towns (purpose ‘d’). 

It also excludes land where the application of policies relating to protected areas such as national parks would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development.

After publication of the NPPF, in February 2025, the government published guidance that states that villages do not count as ‘large built-up areas’ for Green Belt assessment purposes, and that the Green Belt purpose of preventing coalescence of towns does not relate to villages.

So what does grey belt mean in practice for planning policy and decision making, and what is Solihull proposing?

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is now proposing to reclassify four villages in its borough as ‘towns’ to afford them Green Belt protections. These are Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath (as a single settlement), and Balsall Common. The Council is of course in the process of preparing a new Local Plan which will need to include a Green Belt review and proposals for the location of new development – all reflecting the requirements of the NPPF.

Solihull Council Officers have acknowledged that there is no specific national policy guidance on what might constitute a ‘town’ or a ‘village’. However, they have said that ‘population and the range and type of services and facilities present in a settlement can be a helpful indicator’.

Officers noted that guidance published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and a House of Commons Library briefing paper on city and town classifications, suggested a population threshold of between 5,000 and 20,000 inhabitants for small towns.

They wrote: ‘Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath … is the largest, with a population of 19,300. This would categorise it well above the minimum threshold of a small town. The next largest is Balsall Common, with a current population of 7,000 which is likely to increase over the next few years.’

Additionally, ‘…in terms of the services and facilities that are available, both KDBH and Balsall Common are the only two rural settlements in the borough that have the full range of services that would be expected within a village, as well as many services that are also typically located in a town’, adding that ‘unlike any other rural settlement in the borough, they have (or have planning permission for) a large supermarket, a secondary school and higher education opportunities’.

In explaining this to councillors, Officers have confirmed that if these settlements are ‘towns’, and one of the key purposes of Green Belt is to prevent neighbouring towns from merging, this would mean that the Green Belt in between those areas would serve a strong purpose in preventing those towns from merging. If these settlements are ‘villages’, the Green Belt between them would not be given any status in terms of Green Belt policy.

The proposal has implications for future development in the Borough which contains significant areas of Green Belt. It is likely to affect the outcome of planning applications and the assessment of sites for development via the new Local Plan.

If you have land interests in Solihull borough, please do contact us to discuss the implications of the proposal. The consultation is subject to a six-week consultation, running until 25^th August 2025.