Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities on building housing on brownfield sites.

This Government is strongly committed to making the most of brownfield land, in line with our policies in the National Planning Policy Framework which sets out that planning policies and decisions should give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements.

We have introduced a number of other measures to support local authorities to prioritise brownfield development including uplifting local housing need in the top 20 most populated cities to make the most of brownfield land and existing infrastructure, and successfully required every local authority to publish a register of local brownfield land suitable for housing. We have also revised Permitted Development and Use Class rules so that more homes can be created and commercial buildings can change easily between uses, helping make best use of existing buildings.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further empower local leaders to regenerate towns and cities by strengthening and adding to existing measures, for example, changes to compulsory purchase powers and the Infrastructure Levy which will further support brownfield redevelopment. We have also committed to launching a review into identifying further measures that would prioritise the use of brownfield land.

To support our policies, we are providing significant financial support for the take-up and completion of brownfield redevelopment. We have set up the £4.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund and the £550 million Brownfield Housing Fund. The £180 million Brownfield Land Release Fund supports local authorities to release smaller brownfield sites for housing and will be made available between 2022/23 - 2024/25. In addition, we expect to launch the £1.5 billion Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund in the near future.