Brownfield sites have the capacity for one million homes, research reveals

New analysis published today has highlighted how there is enough vacant land on UK brownfield sites to build as many as one million homes, with more than two-thirds of these homes deliverable within the next five years.

The charity, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), who is behind the study, claims the data emphasises how vast sections of green belt land is being lost to housing developments, despite numerous councils in the country identifying brownfield sites that are available. The CPRE found that 17,656 sites identified by local planning authorities would provide enough land for a minimum of 1,052,124 homes. This could rise to more than 1.1m once all registers are published.

The majority of the land highlighted is within urban areas - particularly in London, the north west and the south east - that already have infrastructure, and where there is a higher demand for housing. This underlines the need for an enforced “brownfield first” policy, according to the CPRE.

"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 they follow through on their commitment that all new-builds should be on brownfield first."
Rebecca Pullinger, planning campaigner at CPRE.

Senior planners who undertook the research are now calling on the government to do more to encourage local authorities to refuse more planning applications on greenfield sites after demonstrating the brownfield alternatives.

Rebecca Pullinger, planning campaigner at the CPRE 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 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. The charity says more than one third of these sites are on publicly owned land.

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.

“The government needs to get on with amending its guidance to make sure that councils identified all the available brownfield sites in their areas,” Pullinger added. “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.”