Chris Green – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Green on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his Department is doing to ensure that brownfield land which may have been used by heavy industry is cleaned and prepared for house building in (a) Bolton West constituency and (b) England and Wales.

Brandon Lewis

We are supporting the regeneration of brownfield land through a range of measures. This includes up to £400 million to help create Housing Zones which can be used to cover the costs of land remediation, and a £1 billion fund which we intend to create to focus on unlocking homes on brownfield land for additional housing.

We are also supporting development on brownfield sites through the existing Large Sites Programme, which provides long term loan finance and support to developers, and by releasing enough public sector land for over 150,000 homes by 2020.

In Bolton the Homes and Communities Agency have been working with the Council and the Joint Venture ‘Horwich Vision’ since 2008 to facilitate the redevelopment of a large contaminated site – the former Horwich Loco Works for housing.

Through the Housing and Planning Bill the Government will require local planning authorities in England to create and maintain registers of brownfield land that is suitable for housing.