Government launches Land Assembly Fund to tackle ownership problems

The Government has offered money to help public bodies clear a path through land ownership problems to get more homes built.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said issues such as land contamination, infrastructure requirements, and complex land ownership “can present real barriers to building homes where they are needed most”.

A new £1.3bn Land Assembly Fund for Homes England - and the mayor of London within the capital - will help release land to deliver 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, he said.

It will be used to buy land where work is needed before it can be used, to make it less risky for developers to invest.

Local authorities and other public bodies will have access to a £630m Small Sites Fund for grant funding to speed up right infrastructure provision on smaller residential sites.

Mr Brokenshire said: “The availability of this investment will help us intervene in the sort of sites that aren’t yet ready to build on, or where developers have been put off.

"Developers can now get straight on with building homes, rather than overcoming the barriers to build. And in the same way we are also supporting councils that have land for housing, but need additional help to enable development.”

Lord Porter, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, remained critical of Government restrictions on councils’ ability to provide homes

He said: “Our national housing shortage is one of the most pressing issues we face.

“Any new access to funding for housing associations to employ more brickies and less bureaucrats and build more affordable homes is positive but does not go far enough.

“Homes for affordable and social rent are desperately needed across the country now, not in 2022, and the measures announced today fail to provide the funding certainty councils also need to play a leading role in solving our housing crisis.”

Lord Porter said Prime Minister Theresa May was “wrong to suggest that councils are not capable of building the new homes at scale without recognising they are being hamstrung by Treasury restrictions which prevent them from borrowing against their existing housing stock”.

Mark Smulian