On 12 March 2020 the Government published a policy document entitled ‘Planning for the Future‘ which sets out its plans for the delivery of housing and further reforms to the planning system.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says building on the green belt would only provide low-density housing that would not be classed as affordable.
Working with local bodies the CPRE says it has identified the potential for 37,000 homes on previously developed land thus removing the need to build on the green belt.
Enfield Council has proposed building on small segments of the green belt – which covers around a third of the borough – in a bid to more than triple the rate of housebuilding.
An article in The Times declares that research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) shows that sites with the capacity for nearly 200,000 homes are missing from the official Brownfield Registers. With limited resources local authorities tend to concentrate on the larger sites, meaning that this vital resource of smaller sites is overlooked.
The Mayor has published a draft for public consultation, about which he says “So this London Plan sets out a new way of doing things, something I am calling Good Growth.” If you have any comments the consultation period runs to 2 March 2018.
The report has quite a lot to say about housing and the use of brownfield sites.
Efficient Land Use
New powers enabling local planning authorities (LPAs) in England to grant planning ‘permission in principle‘ (PiP) for new housing on certain categories of land will speed up the delivery of new homes, the government has advised.
Councils in England and Wales are to get new tools to speed up the development of derelict and underused land for new homes, Housing and Planning Minister Gavin Barwell has advised.
Brownfield registers were piloted in 2016, when 73 local planning authorities from across the country pioneered the measures.
All local authorities in England and Wales will now have to produce and maintain up to date, publicly available registers of brownfield sites available for housing in order to help house builders to quickly identify suitable brownfield sites.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has published a Summary of Consultation Responses, question 7 has particular relevance to brownfield development.
“Question 7. Do you consider that it would be beneficial to strengthen policy on development of brownfield land for housing? If not, why not and are there any unintended impacts that we should take into account?
Total number of responses 899; Organisational 588; Personal 211.
The Government has piloted a set of open data standards for publishing information on brownfield land suitable for housing. Over 70 authorities took part in the pilot and the majority have now published their ‘brownfield registers’. Local authorities will be required to prepare and maintain these registers from this spring. The aim is to ensure that nationally consistent information on suitable brownfield sites is kept up to date and made publicly available for communities and developers.
In a recent item entitled “fresh approach needed for housing location” the RTPI argued for a rounded approach to use of both greenbelt and brownfield sites, siting the need to avoid emotional debates caused by a lack of confidence in decisions and to enable greenfield sites and green belt sites to be regarded more positively by local authorities, politicians and communities.
The National Trust and CPRE say a brownfield presumption isn’t strong enough and a return to brownfield-first is needed. They have told the Government the best way to strengthen policy on brownfield housing development would be to constrain greenfield development when suitable previously developed land is available locally.
Both responses to DCLG’s National Planning Policy Framework consultation stress that greenfield permissions granted, without consideration of previously used sites, undermines brownfield development.