£60m to unlock brownfield sites ‘barely a drop in the ocean’, says Mark Powell, Managing Director of EDAROTH.
On the 18th January, the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities announced that councils would be able to bid for a share of the £180m Brownfield Land Release Fund 2 to revive disused and unloved brownfield sites across England, bringing them back into use to deliver thousands of new homes, creating new jobs and boosting local economies. An additional £60m has also been made available to support local regeneration and the release of council land to deliver 5,700 new homes by 2027.
Minister for Housing Rt Hon Lucy Frazer said: “We want to turn neglected areas into thriving new communities, as part of our mission level up the country. To do this we must prioritise brownfield land to deliver new homes for people, in the right places.
“The £60m fund we are opening provides another fantastic opportunity for councils to drive regeneration in their towns and cities — and help more young families onto the housing ladder.”
Responding to the announcement, Mark Powell, Managing Director of EDAROTH — a wholly owned subsidiary of Atkins — said: “Any investment in housing is a positive move. But looking at the scale of the problem across the UK today, this is barely a drop in the ocean, especially compared to the £1.6bn spent on temporary accommodation from 2021 to 2022, according to government’s own figures.
“There are currently in excess of one million households on social housing waiting lists across England, so an extra 5,800 homes by 2027 as quoted in the statement is in no way adequate. And it is a long way short of widely accepted estimates that we need to build at least 90,000 new social homes per year.
“It’s a challenge that requires a proportionate response. However the recognition that brownfield sites have a role to play in the solution is welcome, as we have been calling for, and integral to that development is the use of modern methods of construction.
“In addition to traditional methods, MMC represents a very real opportunity to accelerate the delivery of new homes across the UK which are not only energy-efficient but can also be built faster with greater cost certainty.
“But the MMC sector needs a strong pipeline of developments in order to sustain it and make it viable in the UK, which we would hope funding announcements like this will support.”
Header image: A large unused urban brownfield site with open land covered in cracked overgrown concrete awaiting development in Leeds. ©Philip J Openshaw/AdobeStock
