Ahead of the Brownfield Redevelopment North Conference 2019 (13 November, Leeds), we caught up with Paul Smith of Strategic Land Group, who will be speaking on the day, covering strategic land promotion.
Q: How straightforward is it to secure planning permission on a brownfield site?
From reading the news, you might think that getting planning permission on a brownfield site is easy - unfortunately, that usually isn’t the case, though. Sometimes you need to work hard to prove to the council that the best use of a brownfield site is to develop it, particularly when it’s new homes. Even once the council support housing development in principle, the usual hurdles to getting planning permission still need to be cleared. You’ll still need to give details to the council on highways, ecology, noise, ground contamination, landscape design, air quality. heritage, food risk and many other areas.
Q. What are Brownfield Land Registers, and have they proved effective in bringing more brownfield sites forward?
The government introduced Brownfield Land Registers in April 2017 to encourage more brownfield sites to be developed. The Registers come in two parts; part one is intended to identify all those previously developed sites where a council considers residential development to be appropriate, regardless of their planning status. Of course, planning permission will still be needed before development can take place.
To help speed up the delivery of development - and maximise the use of brownfield sites - a council can choose to place a site on ‘part two’ of its Brownfield Land Register. After meeting some consultation requirements, this will result in the site being granted ‘Permission in Principle, which is akin to an allocation in a Local Plan.
Just as it sounds, it means that the principle of new homes on a site is acceptable, but leaves all the technical details - such as design, drainage and highways impacts - to be dealt with in the future. The hope was that by making clear where housing is acceptable and reducing planning risk, the grant of Permission in Principle would encourage developers to bring those brownfield sites forward, with the twin benefits of increasing housing supply and re-using brownfield land.
The real benefit of the Registers is the inclusion of sites on ‘Part two’ - granting Permission in Principle and speeding up delivery. Unfortunately, Councils have been slow to include sites on Part two, which limits the worth of the Registers.
Q. Are there misconceptions around brownfield and what constitutes brownfield land?
There are a huge number of misconceptions! For example, brownfield land isn’t just anything that has been built on. More than half of the definition of “previously developed land” in national planning policy deals with things that can’t be counted as brownfield. The most obvious example is that agricultural buildings don’t count as brownfield land. Sites where building remains have “blended into the landscape” can even return to being greenfield sites.
Q. The CPRE argues that there is enough vacant brownfield land to accommodate the homes needed to plug the UK’s housing shortfall - is that the case?
No, that isn’t the case unfortunately. CPRE claims there are almost 1,100,000 homes that could be delivered on brownfield sites. Even if we take that figure at face value – and a huge proportion of it is homes on sites which aren’t deliverable - it equates to about 3.5 years’ supply compared to the government’s target of 300,000 new homes a year. Whilst that is an important component of supply, it pales in comparison to the 15-year time period over which councils plan to meet their development needs.
Paul will discuss these topics further at our Brownfield Redevelopment North 2019 Conference on 13 November in Leeds. Find out more here.