Shapps unveils right to reclaim unused public sector land and buildings

Members of the public will be given a right to reclaim unused public sector land and buildings, under proposals unveiled today by the Housing Minister.

Grant Shapps claimed hundreds of acres of unused land and buildings were currently "trapped in a bureaucratic quagmire", and the right to reclaim would help communities improve their local area.

The government described the current system for requesting the sale of public land and buildings – contained in the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 and known as the public request to order disposal (PROD) – as “obscure and restrictive”, highlighting the fact that just one successful application had been made in more than a decade.

Arrangements for considering requests will be streamlined under the proposed new regime, the Department for Communities and Local Government said, with “all but the most sensitive decisions considered alongside other planning casework, instead of government ministers”.

The DCLG is developing an online tool that – when it goes live in May 2011 – will provide the public with information about empty land and buildings in their area. The Department said such information was limited at present, with records only partial and held in a number of different databases.

Publishing a list of all land property assets owned by the Homes and Communities Agency and their status, the Housing Minister urged government departments to make more information about their surplus land available.

The HCA’s assets are categorized by local authority area, type of asset, size and address. The list can be viewed here.

Regulations will be introduced to expand the number of public bodies that members of the public can approach to request a sale of their assets.

Shapps said: "It's completely unacceptable that people have to walk past derelict land and buildings every day, in the knowledge that there's almost no prospect they will be brought back into use, and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. For years, communities who have attempted to improve their local area by developing disused public land and buildings have found themselves bouncing off the walls of bureaucratic indifference – their attempts to do something positive for their community thwarted by a system that has proved totally ineffective.”

The minister insisted that the proposals were “only the start”, adding that if necessary he would use legislation “to make sure it is local communities who reap the rewards of opportunities to develop local land and buildings that currently lie unused".

Shapps added that this right to reclaim would complement the Community Right to Build, one of the DCLG’s flagship initiatives for encouraging house building.