ROOF Blog

The latest government figures have revealed an increase in the use of brownfield land during 2008. London has the greatest proportion of dwellings built on previously developed land, while East Midlands has the smallest. Across the country 78 per cent of dwellings were built on previously used land, up from 77 per cent in 2007. The Campaign to Protect Rural England welcomed the rise in brownfield use saying it showed land was being used more efficiently, but it was alarmed at the level of building on greenbelt and in areas of high flood risk.

A report has said that five new supercities will evolve in the coming 20 years as the country increasingly focuses on new economic endeavours based on scientific innovation. The report Future of Business said changes were being driven by the recession which will push new ways of working, increase international business and encourage entrepreneurship. It named the supercities as Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Newcastle, and called the changes the biggest transformation in the UK since the industrial revolution.

And in related news, a House of Commons communities and local government select committee says councils should have more autonomy to shape the development of their communities. The MPs found that large city and county councils feel that they are not being given sufficient scope to develop their role, and called for central government and its agencies not to intervene in local issues as quickly.

As many regeneration schemes that rely on private funding stall and become in danger of being scrapped, the British Property Federation has suggested that money from multi-billion pound government programmes for hospitals and schools, could be used to part-fund regeneration projects. The federation has also called for stamp duty to be reduced on purchases of residential property to encourage investment and to make it easier for residential real estate investment trusts to be set up.

Tenants First has outlined proposals for a public housing strategy to meet the housing crisis. It calls for the establishment of a £3 billion fund to be used for a ten-year regeneration programme that will include the setting up a board of representatives from government, tenants and those marginalised or excluded from housing. Tenants First said this type of approach guarantees that a proportion of the state resources being handed over to the banking sector will be directed back to social purposes.

Hertfordshire county council and St Albans district council have issued a legal challenge to the government over its regional spatial strategy in the East of England plan. The councils object to designations for 12,000 additional homes in Hemel Hempstead, 10,000 in Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield, and 7,200 in St Albans claiming it will add substantial levels of housing to an already congested areas, that performs a vital green belt function around London.

Two London regeneration projects – Albert Basin and Elephant & Castle – have been named as two of the 16 founding projects of the international climate positive development programme, launched by Bill Clinton at an environmental summit in South Korea today. The project aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by having developers and local government work in partnership to come up with innovations for clean energy and waste management.

Meanwhile a report has found that poor quality housing is holding back the economic potential of the North. The report says that northern towns and cities have a poor range of housing, in particular a lack of high quality residential homes which is limiting the potential of the region. Greater diversity of stock is needed to attract key workers to industries in the knowledge economies – a ‘vital area of growth for the North’. The report calls for the Homes and Communities Agency to switch its funding from the decent homes programme to a more broadly focused decent neighbourhood programme.

Section 106 agreements may need scrapping, an inquiry into regeneration has been told. Michael Parkinson, director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs, has warned that developers are unwilling to pay for infrastructure and said the community infrastructure levy needs to be revised to find new ways of ‘doing regeneration’.

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has published guidance on how social landlords can bid for part of the additional £84 million funding package to cover cavity wall insulation. The scheme aims to cover the properties which would not normally have been filled under the decent homes programme because they were hard to treat, and expects to deliver on 130,000 homes across the country during the next two years.