“The government has drastically cut funds needed to encourage new building on “brownfield” sites, despite claiming that such sites would be key to solving the housing crisis.
Many sites that have previously held buildings or other developments need remediation – a process to remove potentially dangerous toxins from the soil – in order to be considered for new houses, of which the government plans to build hundreds of thousands a year to ease the pressure on the UK’s over-stretched stock.
At least 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of contaminated land have been identified, according to a report from an influential committee of MPs. Many of these sites could be used for housing, farmland, industry or other developments, which could both ease the housing crisis and reduce the need to claim more of the UK’s diminishing stock of “green belt” or agricultural land for building.
Doing so would require work to remove remaining toxins from the soil, which is technically feasible but carries a cost. To date, that cost has often been borne by the government and local authorities, but the MPs on the environmental audit committee found that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had drastically cut its funding for remediation, and is planning to phase it out in 2017.
This would discourage developers from planning new building in areas of housing shortage, particularly those in poor areas, the committee heard from experts. In richer areas, hopeful developers frequently pay for decontamination themselves, but in poor districts they rely on the council or central government to do so in order to render the site suitable. …”
East Devon Watch 