Is it right that more and more greenbelt land in the UK is being built upon for new houses?

In my view, this is a knee-jerk policy which hasn't been thought through. Leaving aside the decimation of our beautiful rural landscape, the choice of where to put these new homes is, inevitably, driven by money. Yes, we have a shortage of housing. Unfortunately, when the decision was taken to sell of Council Houses to their owners, nobody in Government thought about replacing these and this, in part, as well as the expanding population, has led to the housing crisis. I live in a small village in the English countryside. We are facing (and fighting) around 6 different planning applications for development. Were these to be approved, it would increase the size of the village by 62%. There is very limited public transport so anyone moving here would need to drive. The (Victorian) sewers are not equipped to deal with the volume of waste that will be generated by these new homes. The traffic levels, noise and light pollution will increase exponentially. The wishes of those who have chosen to live in a rural community seem to be irrelevant, the Councils press ahead regardless of objections, (the bigger the development, the larger the financial incentive for them) and seem to be hell-bent on destroying William Blake's "England's green and pleasant land." Surely the place to start is with existing developments that are either derelict or unfinished, followed by brown-field sites before anyone starts considering further damage to the beautiful countryside for which the UK is famous?