Whitehall finds surplus land for 80,000 homes
By Vivienne Russell | 2 February 2012
The government has so far
identified enough spare public land to accommodate 80,000 homes, housing minister
Grant Shapps has said.
This puts it on course to
meet its target of finding sites for 100,000 new homes by 2015.
The latest figures follow
October’s announcement that four Whitehall departments had between them found surplus land that
could host 54,000 new homes. These were: the Ministry of Defence; Department of
Health; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; and Department for
Transport.
Speaking yesterday, Shapps
said the Department for Communities and Local Government was now trying to
identify more surplus land in talks with six other Whitehall departments and Network
Rail, the BBC and the Royal Mail.
The six departments
involved in the latest search are: the Home Office; the Treasury; the Ministry
of Justice; the Department for Energy and Climate Change; the Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills; and the Department for Culture, Media and
Sport.
Shapps also revealed that,
this year, payments worth £432m have been made under the New Homes Bonus. This
is the second year of the scheme, which rewards communities that support the
building of new homes or the bringing of empty homes back into use.
The housing minister said the
bonus payments were double what they had been in the scheme’s first year.
He cited Wychavon in
Worcestershire, where the community has received £200,000 of bonus cash to fund
local regeneration projects, and a further £100,000 has gone to local
charities.
Shapps said: ‘The bonus has
gone from being a piece of paper to established policy. And it's here to stay.
So it's now time for all councils to talk to the people in their area about how
they want their bonus spent.
‘And let's be clear –
it is the community’s bonus. So it is only fair that they take part in
discussions and any decisions about its use.’
