Urban taskforce chairman Richard Rogers is to use his speech at the Urban Summit this week to call on the government to stipulate that all development in “many parts of the Midlands and the North” be on brownfield land. The current target is 60%. Rogers, who will be speaking after Building goes to press, is expected to say that infill sites of less than an acre could produce up to 50% more homes than estimated, and to insist that greater responsibility for regeneration be delegated to local and regional levels. He is expected to praise John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, but to add that the government “has not yet shown that it understands the role of towns and cities in supporting the physical infrastructure of society”.