Government announces automatic planning for brownfield sites

The government has announced plans to grant automatic planning permission on brownfield sites in its Housing and Planning Bill, unveiled yesterday.

Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said the bill marks the start of a national crusade to transform “generation rent into generation buy”.

Measures announced in the bill include automatic planning permission in principle on brownfield sites, designed to bring forward more land to build new homes quicker.

Planning reforms to support small builders were also announced – placing a new duty on councils to help allocate land so 20,000 custom and self-built homes a year can be built by 2020.

Other measures included a new legal duty placed on councils to guarantee the provision of 200,000 Starter Homes on all reasonably sized new development sites. These will be offered to first-time buyers at a 20% discount on market prices

Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said: “More than 230,000 households have been helped into homeownership through government-backed schemes since 2010, while our extension to the Right to Buy will see a further 1.3 million housing association tenants given the opportunity to own their own home.

“And the Housing Bill will allow us go even further by kick-starting a national crusade to get 1 million homes built by 2020. It truly is an historic moment that will help deliver the homes hard-working people rightly deserve, transforming generation rent into generation buy.”

The government has also recently announced new measures that it says will make it easier to turn underused office buildings into new homes.

First introduced in 2013, temporary permitted development rights have enabled offices to be converted to new homes without planning permission. These permitted development rights will now be made permanent.