By Mark Smulian | 6 October 2011
Four Whitehall departments have identified enough spare land to accommodate 54,000 new homes, more than half of the government’s target for house building on surplus public sites.
In a report published yesterday, Acceleratingthe release of public sector land: update,overview and next steps, the Department for Communities and Local Government said 29,500 of the homes could be built on Ministry of Defence land. The remainder would be on land owned by Department of Health land (11,000), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (10,000) and the Department for Transport (3,500).
The DCLG will now turn its attention to the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is due to report on their surplus land during next month.
Ministers aim to release land with capacity for 100,000 new homes over the current Spending Review period to 2014.
Advice on disposals will be available to departments from Homes and Communities Agency property experts.
There is expected to be a ready appetite for government land among developers because housing minister Grant Shapps has allowed a ‘build now, pay later’ model to be used, where this represents value for money.
This would enable builders to start work without meeting the upfront cost of the land, which would be paid to the government once homes were sold.
But departments would be required to dispose of land for the best consideration, under rules set out in HM Treasury’s Managing Public Moneypolicy.
