Regional brownfield sites could unlock nearly 400,000 homes

Land for three quarters of the houses England will need across the next decade could be covered by existing brownfield sites, according to new research.

And adding Scotland and Wales into the mix meant such sites could account for 71% of need, according to private rented housing developer Platform, which commissioned the research.

Platform, which is aiming to deliver around 1,000 build-to-rent homes, said 6,131 sites with the capacity to develop 367,711 homes were identified across 23 urban centres in England, Scotland and Wales.

The sites were all earmarked for housing or lying vacant, but Platform said if they were held to host private sale homes delivery could take decades.

Build-out rates could be reduced from 16 to less than five years if the homes were designated as rental properties, due to their faster absorption rates, instead of private sale, the developer claimed.

Previous research from the Investment Property Forum showed that while the rates of sale for housing developments averaged one to two units a week, letting rates were much higher, averaging around seven a week.

Various data used in the research was sourced from central government agencies and local authority records.

Jean-Marc Vandevivere, Platform’s chief executive, said: “Clearly not all this housing is going to be built out at the same time, or even all for rent.

“But what we want to show is the sheer quantity of brownfield land there still is available, and how much more quickly we could start building that out if we targeted it at renters.

“Quite simply, rental blocks don’t have the same rates of absorption problems as housing for sale, and because of that we can build faster.”