Government can unlock smaller housing sites through auctions

COMMENT: It was pleasing to see housing secretary Sajid Javid’s pledge to deliver more sites for housebuilding when housing was added to his portfolio in the recent cabinet reshuffle, says Rory Daly, chief executive, SDL Auctions. [caption id="attachment_857820" align="alignright" width="200"] Rory Daly[/caption] But he must push forward to ensure the new name of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government does not simply become a cosmetic rebranding exercise. I welcome his statement that he would use his cabinet status to deliver more sites for housebuilding, but my welcome comes in recognition that the appointment of the specific housing minister, Dominic Raab, was the 16th housing minister in 20 years – a role that has ironically become something of a revolving door in government. In his statement, Javid said the recipients of the £2.3bn housing infrastructure grants to enable councils to develop new sites would be revealed in the coming weeks. But we would urge the minister to not only focus on all large-scale land in public ownership, but also the thousands of smaller plots of land currently sitting in local authority ownership. Initiatives such as the brownfield register exist to highlight urban sites that local authorities consider suitable for residential development, so there is no need to target the green belt unnecessarily. The registers are in two parts. The first part identifies all brownfield land and the second, those sites granted permission in principle. The register is open to public examination and I would urge all would-be developers to examine the opportunities it contains. All local authorities are obliged to maintain and publish a brownfield register for their area. Just over 20% of local authorities missed the government’s end-of-year deadline to establish their register, so we can only hope that they will ensure their brownfield registers are available soon in order to provide a clear picture of the sites providing opportunities for local housing in every area. Over the past 15 years we have sold many such sites for local authorities such as Derby, Birmingham and Wolverhampton through our auctions and many of these sites now have owner-occupiers living in the houses built on them. Smaller sites tend to be snapped up at auction by the smaller developers – developers who cannot afford to sit on sites in a land bank but must turn a profit as soon as possible for cashflow reasons. This means that previously derelict or underused land is now in profitable use, having created work for local contractors, and been bought by local people who are now paying local council tax. It is a win-win circle that can only benefit the local community. I really hope that Raab and Javid can pull together to make a significant difference this time. However, it is not just local authorities that are sitting on sites. A lot of government departments have public sector land that can be turned into homes. This means it’s important that the government does not look at the national housing shortage in isolation. Delivering more housing has a crucial part to play in a healthy economy. It means increased productivity, delivering homes in the right places and must been seen in the overall context of the need also to free up land for employment use. The auction room cuts through all the prevarication and is the ideal solution to what to do with a site that nobody can make their mind up about. If a council is willing to state that a site is considered suitable for housing, then let the market decide. Locally based valuers know their area. They understand the demand from small developers and I believe that for every site there is a developer – if the developer knows about the site and can access it. And every new house pays council tax. With local authorities under huge budgetary pressure, this can only be good news all round. What we need is real evidence of concerted action from Javid and Raab and this country could enter a housebuilding era not seen since the end of the second world war.