The majority of land identified by government to be released by 2020 for the construction of 160,000 homes is on “high-risk” sites, a report has warned.
Departments have so far identified additional land with capacity for a further 104,461 houses, or 65% of the programme, according to the National Audit Office.
However, a little over half of those sites are “high-risk” – defined by the Department for Communities and Local Government as land where there is at least one issue preventing the exchange of contracts that is unlikely to be resolved by 2020.
Many of these sites are still in operational use and decisions on whether the land is surplus is due to be taken later in this parliament, departments told the NAO.
The report also warned that departments needed to dispose of more sites in each of the next four years than in the best performing year of previous land disposal programmes in order to reach the target.
In the first 10 months of the new programme, the Department for Communities and Local Government, which is leading the project, has met just 5% of its commitment, the report found.
Land with capacity for another 4,853 homes has been disposed of, but the Homes and Communities Agency, responsible for collecting information from government departments, has not yet obtained sufficient evidence that the extra land will be developed for housing.
The report noted that the DCLG had made progress in setting up the new programme with departments’ contributions, responsibilities and data collection arrangements all in place.
However, it concluded that it had been a “relatively slow start”.
A DCLG spokesperson said: “In the last programme we exceeded our commitment to release enough land for 100,000 homes and are now going even further by releasing enough public sector land for at least 160,000 homes.
“The NAO agree that progress has been made, we have measures in place and will monitor the progress of land development including the number of homes built.
“We are fully committed to accelerating the release of public sector land openly and transparently and expect land for tens of thousands of new homes to be released this year.”
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