The figures revealed that the proportion of successful appeals against any type of development in the green belt rose from 31% in the 12 months prior to March 2012, when the NPPF was published, to 36% over the following year. The proportion of dismissed appeals in the same period fell from 61% to 58%.
The data showed that the rate of successful appeals for housing developments in the green belt, at 34%, was at its highest in the six years analysed. The rate was at 26% in the year before the NPPF was published and at 31% in the previous year.
The NPPF states that planning permission should not be granted on green belt land unless "very special circumstances" exist and that potential harm to the green belt must be clearly outweighed by other considerations.
Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said in a statement issued last month that planning decisions by councils and the Planning Inspectorate did not always give the green belt the "sufficient protection that was the explicit intention of policy ministers ".
