Planning and land
Green belt
Land that councils in England have designated as green belt, to keep it open and stop towns growing into each other.
- Published by
- MHCLG
- Level of detail
- Outline (map point level)
- Published for
- Map point
- Covers
- England
- Updates
- Yearly
- Data period
- Not recorded for this layer. The dates below are when it was published and fetched.
- Published
- 15 October 2026
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0
Where it covers
- England
- Wales(not covered)
- Scotland(not covered)
- Northern Ireland(not covered)
This layer covers England only. Welsh planning policy uses different designations, which are not in this layer.
This layer covers England only. Scotland sets its own green belts through its councils.
This layer covers England only. Northern Ireland sets its own green belts through its planning system.
How it is made
Open Index shows the figures as MHCLG publishes them, for the areas they were published for: map points.
Larger areas use the publisher’s own figures, never an average of smaller areas.
Before you use it
- Councils send their green belt boundaries to government in March each year and the data is published in the autumn. It is a snapshot and does not show later changes.
- Being in the green belt does not mean land can never be built on. Councils can change boundaries, and some building is allowed in special cases.
- Each shape is a whole green belt, joined from the parts inside each council.
- England only.
Colours on the map
Source and licence
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
- Edition
- green-belt 2026-10-15
- Published
- 15 October 2026
- Fetched by Open Index
- 15 October 2026
- Licence
- Open Government Licence 3.0
Credit line
Use this data
This snapshot has no download for this layer yet. The catalogue CSV lists every layer with its dates, coverage and credit line.