DCLG’s £45m ‘Land Release Fund’, launched in partnership with the Cabinet Office and Local Government Association’s One Public Estate programme, supports councils to release some of their unused or surplus land for housing.
This help the ambition to unlock enough council-owned land for at least 160,000 homes by 2020.
Councils can now bid for funding for land remediation and small-scale infrastructure, which will help bring sites forward for housing that would not have otherwise been developed.
Alongside this, One Public Estate is making £9m funding available to support more councils to deliver ambitious property-focused programmes.
The programme channels funding and support through councils to deliver ambitious property-based projects. By 2020, councils on the programme are expected to deliver £615m in capital receipts, £158m running costs savings, create 44,000 new jobs and release land for 25,000 new homes.
This partnership between DCLG and One Public Estate gives local authorities greater access to support from across government and help them to release more land, more efficiently.