Housing Minister: Enough spare land “to build 300,000 new homes”

There is enough spare land to build 300,000 new homes in England alone, Housing Minister John Healey has announced.

He said:

“Latest estimates show there is enough surplus public land in England to build 300,000 new homes; 100,000 on local authority land and many more on old NHS, military, transport or schools sites.”

Mr Healey made the remarks in a speech to the Housing Market Intelligence conference last Tuesday, in which he pledged a New Deal for public-private housebuilding that would see companies take a smaller profit in return for Government taking more of the risk.

He added:

“We can cut back profit margins to a third of the traditional housebuilding model by taking site costs and risk out of new housebuilding.

“We can bring in construction companies new to housebuilding, who are builders not developers and used to contractor margins of 6 or 7 per cent rather than the 15-20 per cent norm for traditional housebuilding firms.

“I announced this as the Homes and Communities Agency’s public land initiative (PLI) in June, as one of four parts in the Government’s new £1.5bn Housing Pledge.

“I am now looking to new companies to bring a new competitive edge to the industry, as well as help accelerate innovation in the design and build, as our national challenge is not just to build more homes but to build greener homes in cleaner neighbourhoods.”