The National Housing Federation has called on the government to overhaul proposed brownfield registers to include all suitable sites in order to speed up housebuilding.
According to Inside Housing:
“In its response to a government consultation on how to implement planning changes in the Housing and Planning Bill, the National Housing Federation (NHF) said the registers, currently being piloted by 73 councils, should include all land suitable for housing.
The government is proposing that councils be required to grant planning ‘permission in principle’ on sites and include them in a register of brownfield land suitable for development.
The aim is to give certainty to developers by granting permission up front for ‘core elements’ such as land use and amount of development, as opposed to technical detail, which would be approved later. The government argues this will speed up the development process.
The NHF called for the registers to include all suitable sites – not just brownfield land. It said councils should be able to specify the density and number of homes and requirements for affordable housing and infrastructure when allocating a site for permission in principle. This information could then be used to determine the value of the land.”