Greater London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester home to the largest proportion of brownfield land in the current market, data from Searchland has revealed.
The average brownfield site can hold 53.6 housing units according to the CPRE, meaning that the nation’s current brownfield land is enough to facilitate the construction of 1.43 million new homes.
Housing secretary Michael Gove has signalled that the government will focus on redeveloping commercial brownfield sites into residential homes, rather than focusing on the green belt.
In response, Searchland said the government is effectively bowing to pressure from NIMBYs by not exploring building on the green belt.
Mitchell Fasanya, co-founder and chief executive of Searchland, said: “Despite the government’s best efforts to encourage brownfield building in recent years, it remains a complicated and expensive process and one that is unlikely to address the housing crisis in a meaningful manner.
“However, rather than tackle the controversial subject of green belt development head on, the government has decided to take the easy way out and pursue a half-baked plan on converting previously developed land that is no longer being used, such as abandoned or underutilised industrial areas and obsolete commercial units.
“Unfortunately, as our figures show, brownfield development could benefit many major cities, but its availability is also far too lopsided towards certain counties to help address the issue of housing supply on a national scale.”
London has the most brownfield land, as the capital’s 4,392 brownfield sites account for 16.5% of the national total which, if completely redeveloped, could deliver over 235,000 new housing units to the London market.
The West Midlands sits in second, with 2,522 brownfield sites accounting for 9.5% of the national total with the potential to deliver more than 135,000 new homes.
With 1,971 sites in Greater Manchester, brownfield building could also bring over 100,000 new homes to market (105,646).
Other counties boasting some of the largest levels of brownfield include South Yorkshire (4%), West Yorkshire (3.8%), Surrey (3.6%), Essex (3.4%), Dorset (2.9%) and Hampshire (2.8%).
The City of London (0.01%), Rutland (0.02%) and the Isle of Wight (0.3%) are home to the smallest proportion of brownfield sites in England.