Housing and Planning Act 2016

It provides the necessary legislation for government to implement the sale of higher value local authority homes, starter homes, pay to stay and a number of other measures, mainly intended to promote homeownership and boost levels of housebuilding in England.

A key part of the Act is the assumption of automatic planning permission for brownfield sites which should increase the demand for the services for remediation companies such as VHE.

However, this has yet to be tested and is still likely to lead to disagreements between developers, councils and landowners as to where the responsibility lies for the remediation of historically contaminated sites.

Earlier in the year the Government announced that 73 councils across England will pilot one of the new brownfield registers, which will provide house builders with up-to-date and publicly available information on all brownfield sites available for housing locally.

The registers will help housebuilders identify suitable sites quickly, speeding up the construction of new homes.

They will also allow communities to draw attention to local sites for listing, including in some cases derelict buildings and eyesores that are primed for redevelopment and that could attract investment to the area.

The government has pledged 1 million more homes and to get planning permission in place on 90% of suitable brownfield sites for housing.

The 15 councils with the most brownfield land taking part in the brownfield register pilot project are:

• Cherwell
• County Durham
• Huntingdonshire
• Leeds
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Medway
• Newcastle upon Tyne
• Peterborough
• Selby
• Sheffield
• South Cambridgeshire
• Sunderland
• Tonbridge and Malling
• Wigan

These have the most brownfield land in England, as identified in the final complete publication of National Land Use Database statistics.

VHE are leading land remediation experts across the UK, working in all aspects of the sector, from archaeology to soil stabilisation. If you are interested in working with a specialist team of contractors to help with your land remediation, then please contact VHE on 01226 320 150.