Following Michael Gove’s recent announcement to amend the current planning policy to prioritise brownfield sites to be developed, Property Week’s Tim Clark speaks to industry experts about their thoughts.
Our chairman, John Fleming expressed his views on the initiative, following Tide and Vision’s vast experience developing brownfield sites over the past decade.
Any reform to stimulate housing delivery is welcome news. However, the question of how efficiently brownfield sites can be developed remains unanswered. MMC, and in particular volumetric construction, is a proven way to unlock brownfield developments in constrained urban areas, while building faster, safer and more sustainably.
At Tide and Vision, we have transformed many brownfield sites, some of which had remained idle for decades, enabling thousands of quality homes to be delivered by a volumetric methodology.
We need clear strategies on how to incentivise fast and sustainable housebuilding, we need certainty of planning timescales, and these need to go hand in hand with planning reforms. Improved Council funding and resourcing is also imperative to ensure these reforms can be put into force, which will help drive the UK’s much-needed housing revolution.
