brownfield sites – Hinterland

‘Immoral’ developers ‘targeting rural areas and refusing to build on brownfield sites’

Ivan Annibal — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:00:25 +0000

These sound like a well balanced (not) series of statements from CPRE. I wonder if its just developers who want to build in rural areas? I suspect it takes more than one side of the equation to make a market and after all when was the last time anyone under 25 got a mortgage in large swathes of rural England…..

Developers are “gorging” on greenfield sites in rural areas to build despite a record amount of brownfield land being available for construction, a charity has said.

A report by the CPRE, an organisation that aims to protect the countryside, said there is enough brownfield land in England to accommodate 1.3 million homes.

Despite this, CPRE said “wasteful and immoral” developers are choosing to concrete over greensites because it is cheaper. Emma Bridgewater, the charity’s president, is calling for councils and planners to take a “brownfield first policy”.

“We need to direct councils and developers to use these sites – often in town and city centres where housing need is most acute – before any greenfield land can be released,” she said.

“It is wasteful and immoral to abandon our former industrial heartlands where factories and outdated housing have fallen into disrepair. Developing brownfield is a win-win solution that holds back the tide of new buildings on pristine countryside and aids urban regeneration at a stroke.”

The two maps that reveal we’re building too few houses and the ones we are building are in the wrong places

Ivan Annibal — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 16:44:33 +0000

I’m a geographer so love maps and cartograms. In this article two maps apparently tell the story of one of the biggest problems facing Britain and I would add rural England: the chronic lack of housing. The first map shows the rate of population growth in different locations across the UK. The second map shows the rate of housebuilding across the UK. Together they reveal where the houses that are being built are located; and they’re not where they’re most needed. Barney Stringer, director of planning consultant Quod who produced the data for the maps, describes how “there is an overall shortage of housing and not enough housebuilding, and new homes are needed almost everywhere, but the high growth areas that need it most are not managing to provide new homes much faster than low growth areas. The really big planning question for the next few years is whether the districts around London can and will provide for any of the growth that London can’t accommodate. The maps show quite how little is being achieved at present”. The article opens up the debate about brownfield sites and the green belt, with the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) estimating there is enough land for about 200,000 homes on ‘brownbelt’, with Mr Stringer and others (including academics and the OECD) believing the green belt cannot be preserved perpetually. The OECD believes the green constitutes a “major obstacle to development around cities, where housing is often needed”. However the Council for the Protection of Rural England said their arguments were missing the point, insisting that the idea of green belts was primarily to prevent urban sprawl. Indeed, CPRE has launched a campaign calling on Government to turn rhetoric into action and protect Green Belt. And the House of Commons Library recently produced a Briefing Paper setting out the purpose of green belt land, its size and planning policy. Amid these debates one thing remains clear: going forward we need to think about what we want from the countryside; for land is a finite resource which as Mark Twain reminds us – they’re not making anymore!

Ministers unveil £200million fund to protect the countryside from building

Ivan Annibal — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 21:36:40 +0000

This article tells us the Treasury will pay £200million towards the cost of getting the “brownfield” sites ready for new homes, ministers said. Brandon Lewis, the new Planning and Housing minister, said the cash would ensure that greenfield areas across England are protected from builders, because it would mean that developers’ resources were more focused on meeting a share of housing need in towns and cities.

Under the scheme, councils will be given the chance to bid to set up 10 new housing zones in urban areas across the country. As part of the deal, the local authorities will have to commit to building between 750 and 2,000 new homes. Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “This is great start to getting back to a proper ‘brownfield first’ agenda which is good for our towns and for countryside.

The CPRE is running a Waste of Space of campaign which has identified revealing a huge number of derelict sites across the country.” However no-one wants to live in brownfield sites in towns and cities – lets hope this inconvenient truth doesn’t upset the brilliant logic of those planning and taking this policy forward because theoretically on paper, just like help to buy, it seems a wonderful idea.