Only if you place no value on the land simply existing as it does now and providing aesthetic value. Most people privileged enough to sit on a planning council coincidentally also trend towards valuing peace and quiet and are hesitant to approve projects that may disrupt their assumed way of life.

From the outside looking in, rural UK council politics seems like the epitome of “I got mine so bug off”. I think this is one reason why London is becoming a super hub (among other reasons). London broke the ice and now they are trying to keep progressing but physical distance is becoming a limiting factor. Other municipalities will need to embrace change if they want to keep developing into a place where people want to live and work.

All of the UK's cities - apart from museums like Oxford and Cambridge - are full of real estate investment sprawl. There is no reason some of those spaces couldn't be used as labs and light factories. In fact there are plenty of brown field conversion projects turning old mills (etc) into new light industry hubs.

The bigger problems in the UK are business rates (extortionate), profiteering by landlords and land owners, insanely expensive utilities, crumbling physical infrastructure, and Brexit.

We could have had a government that invested/fixed in all of those things, but the big landords and land owners decided they didn't like that idea. They'd prefer to keep the country struggling and backward, because it appeals to their sense of aristocratic self-importance.

Cambridge(shire) has also been forced to allow more real estate; Northstowe, Waterbeach New Town, the Eddington neighbourhood within Cambridge city limits, Springstead Village, even been a few noticeable changes around Cottenham.

> Only if you place no value on the land simply existing as it does now and providing aesthetic value.

A lot of Cambridgeshire is frankly flat, ugly monoculture.