An analysis of
Brownfield Land Registers confirms that there is enough space on brownfield
land to build at least one million new homes, with more than two-thirds of
these homes deliverable within the next five years.
Many of these sites
are in areas with a high need for housing.
This means that
three of the next five years’ worth of Government housing targets could be met
through building homes on brownfield land that has already been identified,
easing pressures on councils to continue releasing greenfield land
unnecessarily and preventing the unnecessary loss of countryside.
The Campaign to
Protect Rural England (CPRE), which carried out the analysis, found that the
17,656 sites identified by local planning authorities, covering over 31,133
hectares of land, would provide enough land for a minimum of 1,052,124 homes –
this could rise to over 1.1 million once all registers are published,
confirming CPRE’s previous estimates.
Most brownfield land
is within urban areas that already have infrastructure, and where there is a
higher demand for housing. The areas of England identified as having the
highest number of potential “deliverable” homes include London, the North West
and the South East with the new registers giving minimum housing estimates of
267,859, 160,785 and 132,263 respectively.
Rebecca Pullinger,
Planning Campaigner at the Campaign to Protect Rural England said: “It’s
fantastic news that local authorities have identified so many sites on
brownfield land that are ready and waiting to be developed – and shown how wide
of the mark the Government’s estimates of brownfield capacity have been.
Contrary to what the Government, and other commentators have said, brownfield
sites are also available in areas with high housing pressure. Indeed, our
analysis is conservative with its estimates of potential number of homes that
could be built – the figure could much higher if density is increased and if
more registers looked at small sites.
“The Government
needs to get on with amending its guidance to make sure that councils
identified all the available brownfield sites in their areas. They then need to
improve incentives to build on these sites and ensure that they follow through
on their commitment that all that new-builds should be on brownfield first.”
The registers have
found sites for well over 400,000 homes that have not yet come forward for
planning permission despite the urgent need to move sites towards development.
More than one third of these sites are on publicly owned land. As public
authority developments should give a significant opportunity to provide
affordable homes, this presents an opportunity for homes built on brownfield
land to help towards local need.
Further results from
the analysis show that there is brownfield capacity wherever there is threat to
the Green Belt. In a number of areas that have an extremely high number of
sites in the Green Belt proposed for development, particularly in the North West,
local authorities have identified enough suitable brownfield land to satisfy up
to 12 years’ worth of housing need.
In order to make
best use of suitable brownfield land, CPRE calls on the Government to take the
opportunity presented by the upcoming review of the National Planning Policy
Framework (NPPF) to introduce a brownfield first approach to land release and
granting planning permissions for development. Local authorities must be
empowered to refuse planning permission for greenfield sites where there are
suitable alternatives on brownfield land.
