Skip to content

Less than a tenth of the UK’s land is developed

The UK has plenty of space to build on if more land were allocated for development, as just 8.7% of available land is currently utilised, development site firm Searchland has found.

Nearly 11.9 million hectares of land is currently non-developed, compared to 1.1 million which has been developed.

This highlights the huge scale of the land that is not permitted for development, which is commonly classified as green belt, incorporating agricultural land, forest, open land and water, outdoor recreation and residential gardens.

Mitchell Fasanya, co-founder and chief executive of Searchland, said: “Given the enormity of the current housing crisis, it may come as a surprise to many that such a small proportion of the nation is actually classified as ‘developed land’ and an even more minute percentage of this falls under the category of residential development.

“Of course, when you break the nation down at a more granular level, the challenge presenting the nation’s developers becomes more than apparent.

“In many areas, developed land accounts for a far higher level of land use meaning that any opportunities to provide residential housing are few and far between. For those looking outside of these major towns and cities, the other issues faced include the classification of undeveloped land as green belt.

“While the prospect of building on the green belt is such a contentious issue, if even a small proportion of this land was used to build more homes, the nation’s available housing stock could be boosted enormously.

“Of course, it depends where such land would be allocated, as there’s no need for the rest of England to be developed like Greater London, which sits alone in terms of the proportion of the land that it utilises.

“However, as the population continues to grow, it’s time we had some difficult conversations around reallocating more land for development.”

The least developed regions

The South West of England is the least developed region of England, with just 7% of total land classified as developed.

Both the North East (7.2%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (7.9%) are also home to some of the lowest levels of developed land of all regions.

London most developed by far

London is predictably the most developed region, with 40.6% of total land classified as such. 63,834 hectares of the capital’s total 157,340 hectares have been developed.

To put this into perspective, the South East is the second most developed region, where developed land accounts for just 9.9% of the region’s total.

Most developed local authorities

The most developed area of the nation is the City of London, where a huge 93.5% of land is classified as developed, followed by Kensington and Chelsea, at 68.5%, and Islington, at 66.4%.

Outside London the most built up local authority area is Liverpool, where 51.6% of land is utilised.

This is followed by the port city of Portsmouth, at 51.3%, and then Manchester, at 51.1%.
Other areas outside of London to rank as the most developed include Norwich (49.7%), Southampton (49.7%) and Blackpool (48.2%).

Topics

Related