Street sets out plan to develop ‘brownfield first’
GREEN belt housing development will only happen after exhausting building on urban sites, a regional mayor candidate has pledged.
Conservative Andy Street wants to avoid a repeat of the controversial decision to release green belt land for 6,000 homes at Sutton Coldfield and is promising to adopt a brownfield first policy if elected in May.
The West Midlands needs 165,000 homes over the next 15 years to keep pace with demand. But developers favour green belt land as it is often less expensive to build on and more lucrative in house price terms.
Often brownfield sites require decontamination or old buildings and foundations being removed first.
It is estimated Birmingham has space for an extra 43,000 homes within its existing urban area, including old factory sites or where out of date housing has been demolished, and Mr Street wants to see this used first.
He said: “The Sutton Coldfield situation is one we have to ensure never happens again. How can it be right that green belt is used for housing at a time when right across the region there are huge pieces of brownfield land that have laid untouched for decades.
“There are at least 1,600 hectares of brownfield sites in the West Midlands, which is about the size of 2,000 football pitches.
“This is why as mayor I will commit to a ‘brownfield first’ policy. I pledge to make this a reality in the first case by using the West Midlands Combined Authority’s £200 million to get brownfield land ready for housebuilding and commercial use.
“We can’t say that green belt can be protected permanently. But before we even think about using it for housing, we need to exhaust every other avenue. And plenty of other avenues.
“First, we need to get these brownfield sites back into use and quickly. This can be done by securing the funding necessary to reclaim lands that may be contaminated.”
He added that he wanted to make use of the 10,000 homes in the region which were currently empty and look at developing better high density housing in towns and cities.
Further proposals could include converting disused offices into flats.
He is one of five candidates so far bidding to become the first West Midlands Mayor in the election on May 4. The others are Siôn Simon (Labour), Pete Durnell (UKIP), Beverley Nielsen (Lib Dem) and James Burn (Green). there are