Watchdog calls on Welsh councils and their partners to take different approach to overcoming barriers to brownfield development

Welsh councils could provide more homes without environmental damage on brownfield sites if they took a more interventionist and collaborative approach, the Auditor General for Wales has said.

In a report on councils’ use of brownfield sites, Adrian Crompton said that to avoid permanent loss of greenfield land the Welsh Government promoted the use of previously developed land and repurposing of empty buildings.

But sites in former industrial areas could have contamination and remediation costs and so “development often takes an easier course, contrasting national policy and increasing reliance on greenfield sites”.

Crompton said regeneration of brownfield land was “difficult but necessary if we are to avoid greater problems for future generations.

"Councils and their partners need to take a different approach if they are to overcome the significant barriers to brownfield development and meet the aims at the heart of the Well-being of Future Generations Act.”

Regeneration could be increased significantly with a more systematic, interventionist, and collaborative approach, the report said.

Councils were found to have a broad but not comprehensive understanding of the built environment and potential for regeneration and did not always take an ambitious, interventionist approach to tackle long-standing barriers.

The report found: “Councils are able to name barriers to brownfield regeneration and repurposing of empty buildings but are not utilising learning from elsewhere to overcome them.”

There were also weaknesses in data held as to where suitable sites were located.

The Auditor General recommended councils should create a systematic process to find and publicise suitable sites for regeneration, drawing on their own data and external sources to develop a more complete picture of sites.

He called on the Welsh Government to create a national framework for monitoring and assessing levels of brownfield sites being developed compared to levels of sites available and levels of greenfield development.

Mark Smulian