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Homes England plans to match developers to sites via new online portal
Homes England has launched an interactive online tool which it hopes will match builders to plots of public land which are ready for homebuilding.
Almost 2,500 acres of land ready for development will be made available to house builders, including small and medium-sized companies, to purchase via a new online platform called Land Hub.
In total, 148 sites will be made available through Land Hub in the next 18 months. Each site will be listed with details of its planning status, size and proposed use, such as residential, industrial or commercial.
The tool is being launched at this week’s MIPIM property conference in Cannes, France. It replaces Homes England’s Land Development and Disposal Plan.
Inside Housing reported in September that Homes England was seeking to improve the way it sells public land, amid concerns that the process took too long and did not result in enough affordable homes being built.
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Homes England controls around 8,500 hectares of public land including coalfield sites, assets inherited from the former regional development agencies, and sites acquired from other government departments.
It is also investing through a £1.03bn land assembly fund, which it uses to acquire sites which require intervention before they are ready for housebuilding.
Sir Edward Lister, chair of Homes England, said: “Bringing another 148 sites to market demonstrates the scale of Homes England’s ambition to unlock land and accelerate the delivery of homes the country needs.
“We are keen to speak to developers about the opportunities in our latest pipeline and want to collaborate with both major developers and smaller builders to create a more resilient housing market.”
Last month, Homes England agreed a partnership with the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to develop land being released by the Ministry of Defence. This has the potential to deliver over 10,000 homes across seven brownfield sites, it said.
Housing secretary James Brokenshire said: “We are determined to help a new generation realise the dream of homeownership, which is why we are determined to see 300,000 new homes built a year by the mid-2020s.”
