The CPRE last week held an event launching their latest report Recycling our land – State of Brownfield 2021
The event was chaired by Emma Bridgewater, CPRE President and featured Chris Pincher MP, Housing MInsiter, Ruth Cadbury MP, Rose Grayston from New Economics Foundation and Paul Milner, CPRE.
Alongside the report, CPRE is launching a ground-breaking ‘brownfield toolkit’, which will empower local communities to identify vacant or derelict land or buildings that can be used for new homes, which local planners have so far not spotted or overlooked.
– The brownfield toolkit can be viewed at this link
The report sets out a number of recommendations. Enabling the levelling-up of the country through the development of housing on brownfield land will require:
- Brownfield first introduce a comprehensive brownfield first policy in the National Planning Policy Framework, which allows for the true prioritisation and harnessing of the full potential of brownfield land development before any greenfield or Green Belt land is considered.
- Brownfield targeted housing funds incentivise through focusing New Homes Bonus payments on developments which deliver on brownfield land and provide affordable homes to allow for brownfield land to serve the needs and regeneration of the north and midlands.
- Compulsory purchase powers provide local communities with stronger mechanisms to bring brownfield land forward as a source of land supply, such as increased compulsory purchase powers. Local authorities should also have increased control of the order in which development land is built so that suitable brownfield sites are developed first.
- Design standards retain local communities’ ability to comment on planning applications and local authorities’ ability to refuse developments on brownfield land, and provide legal guarantees that require developers to deliver agreed design standards.
- Diversity of housing tenures amend the NPPF to ensure national planning policy requires that all new developments have diversity of housing tenures and types as outlined by the 2018 Independent Review of Build Out.
– The full Recycling our land – State of Brownfield 2021 can be downloaded here
