Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the proportion of development land required to meet current net additional demand for housing that could come from brownfield sites.
Answered by Nick Boles
Much brownfield land is not suitable or readily available for housing. Much of this land is already in use, and of the brownfield land that is available much has further constraints based on demand (for example sufficient housing need in the right location), or developer ambition. Using these constraints we estimate that there could be housing for up to 200,000 homes on brownfield land. Of course, there may still be other restrictions on this land (such as contamination, Green Belt designation and risk of flooding).
Ministers want to see permissions for homes in place on more than 90 per cent of suitable brownfield land by 2020 and will be consulting on measures to underpin this ambition.