Turbo-Charging Brownfield Development?

Michael Gove has today (13 February) told councils to look again and prioritise house building on brownfield land. As part of the announcement he has instructed ‘big city’ councils to ‘turbo-charge’ their brownfield housebuilding agenda to help meet the 300,000 new homes a year target as set out in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.  

Both the Secretary and of State and Prime Minister have been hitting the airwaves this week to make the case for brownfield development as a means of addressing plummeting home ownership among young people. The trend away from home ownership is Gove argues an intrinsic ‘threat to democracy’. 

It is true that home ownership among those 35 and under is considerably lower than in the 1990’s. While there has been a small uplift among the 25-29 and 30-34 age groups in the last decade, for 20-24’s it has virtually flat-lined. This is recognised by all sides of the political divide as an issue that needs resolving, for the Conservatives it amounts to both an electoral and existential crisis. 

In a bid to tackle this Gove has confirmed planning authorities in England’s 20 largest cities and towns will be made to follow a ‘brownfield presumption’, if housebuilding drops below expected levels. It is not clear the process through which this will be imposed on ‘failing’ councils given the recent ambiguity around targets. 

At the publication of the long awaited NPPF in December Gove confirmed he was watering down targets for local authority housing delivery, explaining that local housing targets were now officially “advisory”. Gove explained delivery would be still monitored and ‘league tables’ produced to show which councils are failing to deliver against the advisory targets. The Government is also this week tabling legislation designed to extend current permitted development rights, so that commercial buildings can be more easily converted to deliver new housing. 

Labour have been highly critical of the announcement labelling them ‘threadbare’. Matt Pennycook MP, Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning has argued that boosting brownfield development is not necessarily the main barrier to greater house building. In London the majority of brownfield sites already have planning consents and the key issue preventing further progress on this are the costs associated with meeting requirements on brownfield land.

A consultation on these proposals launched today and will run until Tuesday 26 March. The Secretary of State has yet to announce this to Parliament so all eyes will be on Gove next week when the House returns on Monday.