Roberta Blackman-Woods – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roberta Blackman-Woods on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to bring forward housing development on brownfield land.

Brandon Lewis

We have introduced a package of measures designed to accelerate the development of brownfield land and deliver more homes. We expect local authorities to be proactive in bringing forward housing on brownfield land and to ensure they have local development orders in place, granting planning permission for new homes on over 90 per cent of brownfield land suitable for housing by 2020. This reflects the priority given to re-using brownfield in the National Planning Policy Framework. In particular:

• We have reformed the planning system to ensure that it supports the delivery of housing, including homes on brownfield land. The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that planning should encourage the effective use of land by re-using brownfield sites, provided they are not of high environmental value and that local councils can set locally appropriate targets for using brownfield land.
• We have amended planning practice guidance to stress the importance of bringing brownfield land back into use
• Local authorities have been invited to bid for funding from a £4.4million incentive fund to support up to 100 local development orders.
• We are currently consulting on measures to underpin the Government’s programme.
• We are developing a support package, including local development order templates, to help authorities develop local development orders on smaller sites.
• Included powers in the Infrastructure Act which will enable the Mayor of London to produce Mayoral Development Orders that will remove planning obstacles to help deliver more housing in London.
• We are providing £400 million of recoverable investment funding to create Housing Zones to support development on brownfield land. 9 housing zones have already been announced in London.
• We have changed the Community Infrastructure Levy rules to provide an increased incentive for brownfield development, and extended exemptions for empty buildings being brought back into use.
• We have also introduced changes to national policy to lift Section 106 burdens on vacant buildings being returned to use or demolished for re-development and made it easier to convert empty buildings into homes.
• We have introduced a new national Starter Homes exception site planning policy to make it easier to secure planning permission for Starter Homes on underused or unviable commercial and industrial land which is not currently identified for housing – to be offered exclusively to young first time buyers at a 20% discount
• We have provided tax relief where brownfield land suffers from contamination
• We have provided access to funding for developers through initiatives such as the Local Infrastructure Fund, Get Britain Building investment fund and the Growing Places Fund
• We have secured the release of enough unused public sector land to build over 103,000 new homes and announced the establishment of a London Land Commission, based at the Greater London Authority, which will be tasked with identifying public sector brownfield land that is no longer needed in London.

We have also, as outlined in Question UIN 227326 of 17 March, implemented a package of proposals to get empty homes back into use.