The amount of brownfield land available will not be enough to meet housing need, a new report has argued.
The research, sponsored by The Gracechurch Group, compares the amount of brownfield land shown on the new pilot brownfield registers with the government’s recently published estimate of housing need.
It found brownfield has the potential for 200,000 homes, despite the ten-year demand for housing being 550,000 homes.
Brownfield: The housing crisis solved? argues this dispels the idea that councils do not need to release greenfield land to meet housing need.
‘The housing shortfall from brownfield is even greater than these numbers suggest,’ said Neil Lawson-May of The Gracechurch Group, which sponsored the study.
‘Brownfield is unevenly spread across the country and most brownfield is not in areas where there is high housing need. In the pilot, only two regions have sufficient brownfield capacity to accommodate their five-year housing requirement once planning attrition has been factored in. Brownfield land can make a significant impact on the housing crisis, but it cannot solve it.’