The government estate teams will take part in ‘speed dating’ style meetings with developers and investors on Friday, according to Housing News.
The first meeting of this kind has been set up with the aim to accelerate targets to build 100,000 homes on public sector land by March 2015.
Being held at Whitehall, teams from Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, plus other departments and agencies, will discuss opportunity sites and find resolutions for problem sites throughout the UK.
It is also a way for the public sector to introduce sites to a range of potential developers and secure a competitive return from the market.
For smaller house builders and developers, the event will be useful to form connections and discover openings for investment and partnership.
Eric Pickles, secretary of state for Communities and Local Government department, will make a pre-recorded address for the event. He said: ‘We have identified plenty of underused public sector sites in need of developers willing and able to build the homes this country urgently needs. This event is a great way to get everyone together in one room and do some match making that will bring enormous benefits to families and communities around the country. Sitematch could potentially help us create thousands of homes on surplus public sector land helping to ensure we make the very best use of land that has already been developed.’
Other speakers at Sitematch UK include Terrie Alafat, director of housing growth and affordable housing at DCLG; Mark Clare, group chief executive at Barratt Developments and Brendon Walsh, director of regeneration, economic development and environment at the London Borough of Hounslow.