Searchland has researched the availability of “brownfield” land across the UK.
- What is brownfield land?
- Imagine a piece of land in the city that was previously used, perhaps by factories or warehouses. Over time, these places might shut down, leaving the land unused or underused. That’s brownfield land – essentially, previously developed land that’s not currently in use.
- Why are we talking about brownfield land?
- Because there’s potential to build homes on them! London, Birmingham (in the West Midlands), and Manchester (in Greater Manchester) have a lot of this land. In fact, according to some data, these areas could house over a million new homes if developed.
- What’s the government’s stance?
- The government, led by Housing secretary Michael Gove, is looking at these brownfield sites as a golden opportunity to build more homes. Instead of building on the green belt (which are those lovely green open spaces around cities that we like to preserve), they’re considering repurposing the brownfield sites, especially old commercial ones.
- What’s the controversy?
- Not everyone’s happy. Some feel the government is trying to avoid a potentially touchy subject – building on the green belt. This is because building on the green belt might upset certain groups of people (often referred to as NIMBYs – meaning “Not In My BackYard”), who don’t want new development near them. Mitchell Fasanya from Searchland feels that while developing on brownfields is a good idea, it’s a bit of an oversimplification to think it will solve the UK’s housing problem.
- How’s the distribution of brownfield land?
- London’s leading the pack. It has 4,392 sites which make up 16.5% of all the brownfield land in the country. If developed, that’s over 235,000 new homes just in London!
- Following London, the West Midlands could see over 135,000 homes, and Greater Manchester might get over 100,000 homes.
- Some other areas with big chunks of brownfield include South and West Yorkshire, Surrey, Essex, Dorset, and Hampshire.
- However, places like the City of London, Rutland, and the Isle of Wight hardly have any brownfield to speak of.
In simple terms, there’s a lot of unused land in cities like London, Birmingham, and Manchester that could be turned into new homes. The government likes the idea, but not everyone’s convinced that it’s the complete solution to the UK’s housing needs.