English Partnerships to target ‘hardcore’ brownfield sites

A collection of 143 “hardcore” brownfield sites that have been vacant for at least 12 years are to be targeted for re-use in a new pilot programme.

The English Partnerships and ODPM scheme was launched across 12 local authority areas on Tuesday and is worth up to £24m over the next two years. It aims to redevelop at least one “hardcore” site in each area over the next two to three years.

After consultation – English Partnerships will ask locals which sites they would like to see re-used and has promised to visit every area flagged up – a shortlist will be identified in each area. Practical studies will be drawn up to assess the barriers to housing development, employment or returning the land to natural use.

The 12 pilot areas are Easington, Barrow-in-Furness, Manchester, Sheffield, Mansfield, Dudley, Milton Keynes, Ipswich, Tower Hamlets, Barking and Dagenham, Bristol, and Kerrier in Cornwall (see “Tough nuts”, right).

The areas were selected because they provide a mix of urban and rural examples and a mix of reasons for dereliction.

Professor Paul Syms, national brownfield director for English Partnerships, said the scheme would look at delivering new housing but no targets had been set.

He said: “We act as the government’s adviser on brownfield strategy and housing delivery is one of our core functions so obviously the two go hand in hand. There are very different lessons to be learned in terms of re-using land for housing and, indeed, what we do with former housing land if you are clearing large areas.

“We have a very good idea about how land has become derelict and why it is not being re-used, but the pilot programme will actually tease out the real practicalities of bringing these long-term, hardcore sites back into beneficial use.”

He confirmed that some of the schemes could “overlap” with existing English Partnerships projects, such as the development of Barking Reach in east London, but were likely to deal with separate projects.

At this stage English Partnerships has indicated each local development team will be given £20,000 towards the costs of producing a feasibility study. Funds have already been set aside from next year’s English Partnerships business plan as concrete plans for the sites come forward – but this is likely to be “less than £2m” per area.

A key objective of the programme is to gauge the level and type of public sector intervention required to deal with the problem – English Partnerships has identified more than 2000 long-term sites nationwide.