Report finds brownfield sites alone cannot tackle housing crisis

A new report has found that the development of greenfield sites will still be necessary if enough homes are to be delivered to meet demand. The report looked at the sites identified on the brownfield land registers created by councils.

The report, ‘Brownfield: The Housing Crisis Solved?’ by the Gracechurch Group, December 2017, considers areas with pilot brownfield registers, comparing them with these areas’ five-year housing demand.

The pilot areas have the potential for 200,000 homes, whilst the five-year demand for housing in these areas is 275,000 homes and 550,000 are needed over 10 years.

According to the report, most brownfield land is not in areas of high housing need and therefore the headline numbers present a less accurate picture than the regional analysis.

The Government’s new formula for assessing housing need was laid over this to see how far brownfield land can go towards meeting housing needs.

Of the 73 pilot local authorities, 67 had published their registers as of mid-December 2017. In total, the existing registers identified 4,894 brownfield sites, covering 12,960 hectares, which could provide around 300,000 new homes – but this falls to 200,000 once the normal one-third attrition rate for the planning process is accounted for.

If you would like to read the detailed report, please click here.