Jake Berry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jake Berry on 2016-01-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many applications to buy publicly owned land for residential development were made in each year since 2009.

Brandon Lewis

The Department does not hold information on the number of applications to buy publicly owned land, nor is there a single place where developers ‘apply’ to purchase land.

As part of the Public Sector Land programme up to March 2015, 942 sites owned by central Government and its agencies were sold with capacity for 109,000 homes.

The Government property finder tool on GOV.UK lists government property for sale and rent as well as information on the Government estate.

The Government is committed to releasing more of its land for housing, with an ambition to release surplus land for at least 160,000 homes by 2020. We have also introduced the Right to Contest which allows the public to identify sites which are surplus and could be put to better economic use, including housing.