Developers ready to ‘jump on opportunities’ from registered brownfield sites

Under plans, announced earlier this week, local authorities will be made to identify suitable development sites for housebuilders.

Councils will have to produce up-to-date, publicly available registers of brownfield sites available for housing locally.

Housing minister Gavin Barwell says the registers will help housebuilders identify suitable sites quickly and will “unlock land for thousands of new homes”.

He said: “We need to build more homes in this country so making sure that we re-use brownfield land is crucial. We want to bring life back to abandoned sites, create thousands more homes and help protect our valued countryside. These new registers will give local authorities and developers the tools to do this.”

The government says the registers will also simplfy the planning permission process by giving more certainty as to whether a site is suitable for development before developers “work up costly proposals to obtain full planning permission.”

Ashley Ilsen, head of lending at development finance specialist Regentsmead, said: “This is really just the start of what the government can be doing to help solve the housing crisis. It’s great to have schemes such as this in place but if we want to achieve the appropriate housing targets more needs to be done. We at Regentsmead welcome this and the news and I’ve already spoken to some developers that are waiting to jump on the opportunities that come with this.”