Grants will allow homes to be built on neglected land

Funding is being made available to encourage councils to release disused brownfield sites for housing development.

The £2m for Surrey will include the cost of clearing asbestos, clearing empty buildings and former car parks or industrial land to make way for homes.

Surrey Heath Borough Council said the grant will support its new housing development in London Road, in Camberley.

It said: “The grant will be used to demolish derelict buildings on the site and safely remove asbestos from the former Allders building, clearing the way for future development.”

Boroughs and districts are bracing themselves for new government housing targets that could see the demands to deliver new homes rise.

In an effort to alleviate some of the pressures, Labour has allocated £68m to 54 local authorities to turn neglected land into housing.

Surrey Heath Borough Council is set to receive £1.5m, while Tandridge District Council is in line for £250,000.

The funding was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said: “From the outset we promised to get this country building again to deliver 1.5 million homes over this parliament and help tackle the housing crisis we have inherited.

"This funding for councils will see disused sites and industrial wastelands transformed into thousands of new homes in places that people want to live and work."

Planning authorities such as Waverley Borough Council have no control over the rate of housing completions.

It has written to the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over the government’s wider planning reforms, which would require Waverley to deliver 1,379 homes a year.

Council leader Paul Follows has said that target is “unrealistic” and “unachievable”.

He said: “The proposed standard method is fundamentally detached from the realities of local constraints, including national designations such as the Surrey Hills National Landscape.

“It risks undermining both the environment and community cohesion, and we urgently need a more credible, locally tailored approach.”

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