100,000 homes could be built on brownfield sites

MORE than 100,000 homes could be built on Greater Manchester’s brownfield sites.

Analysis by the National Housing Federation (NHF), shows there are 1,307 brownfield sites in the area, covering 1,491 hectares of land.

The federation, which represents housing associations, says the minimum number of dwellings that could be developed on these sites would add an extra 100,019 homes in Greater Manchester.

This includes 324 sites in Manchester with the potential for 43,540 homes, 211 sites with the potential for 20,172 homes in Salford and 130 sites in Wigan with potential for 9,599 homes. The number of households living in Greater Manchester is set to grow by 15 per cent between 2016 and 2041.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics put the number of households in the area at 1.16m in 2016, and predicted this number will grow to 1.33m by 2041. Local planning authorities in England are required to publish registers of previously developed (brownfield) land. The NHF compiled these lists into a single map in order to analyse how much land is available and how many homes could be built.

Across England, the NHF identified 17,982 brownfield sites covering 30,497 hectares of land. The development potential of these sites could mean around one million additional homes on all brownfield sites in England.

Gerald Koessl, research officer at NHF, said: “One of the barriers to building homes is sourcing suitable, available, affordable land in the right areas.

“Looking at brownfield land is a good place to start but even then it’s not always easy to locate where it exists and where the most appropriate new sites are to suit your organisation’s development programmes. This is why we have collated and mapped all individual brownfield registers that local authorities in England have been required to publish since 2017.”