Abode Recruitment

Councils are coming under pressure to allow development on greenfield land to meet house building goals, a study has found.

Research conducted by the Campaign to Protect Rural England suggests the availability of greenfield land in some areas is reducing the viability of building on brownfield sites.

This goes against a government target that states 60 per cent of development should be on brownfield land.

Kate Gordon, CPRE’s senior planner, said: ‘Councils are expected to find land to accommodate the national target of three million new homes by 2020. Areas that have relied in the past on brownfield sites to meet their housing needs, face pressure to allocate greenfield land for development.’

The report suggests local authorities could do much to improve the viability of brownfield land and that people who set targets, plan and build homes need to ‘understand the operation of crucial market signals at the local level’.