England has brownfield land capacity for over 800,000 new homes, with 55% of sites already holding full or in-principle planning permission. The West Midlands can accommodate 191,000 new homes on brownfield sites, with 60% ready for construction.
The brownfield-first policy exists to protect green spaces and agricultural land while utilizing existing infrastructure. Infrastructure exists. Schools, transport, and utilities are in place. Building on these sites means avoiding the environmental cost of paving over the countryside.
Yet delivery lags far behind capacity. Housing shortages continue, rents rise, and families remain priced out of homeownership.
Why Developers Walk Away From Approved Sites
Permission doesn’t equal construction.
Building homes is not financially viable across 48% of the country. Brownfield sites carry demolition costs, remediation expenses, and contaminated land cleanup that greenfield sites avoid.
The gap between permission and construction is money.
The West Midlands has thousands of brownfield sites with capacity for over 191,000 homes. Demand is clear. The economics aren’t.
Without public money, developers walk away from sites with planning permission but no financial return.
Public Money Unlocks Private Development
Government funding changes the equation.
Recent government funding programs demonstrate what’s required. Councils across England received grants to turn neglected brownfield sites into housing projects. Cities like Manchester and Eastbourne transformed former industrial sites into hundreds of affordable homes with targeted public investment.
Stoke-on-Trent received tens of millions for historic building conversion and former pottery factory redevelopment. These projects prove the model works—but only with substantial public funding.
Where brownfield development has succeeded, it’s followed the same pattern: significant government grants bridge the viability gap between approval and construction.
The Funding Gap Government Won’t Address
Financial viability is the bottleneck. Brownfield sites need remediation, demolition, and heritage considerations that add costs greenfield sites don’t face. Biodiversity net gain requirements hit brownfield sites harder because space for habitat creation is limited on urban sites.
The 800,000 home capacity exists. The planning framework supports it. The infrastructure is ready.
Government policy demands brownfield-first development, but funding remains ad-hoc and insufficient. Making England’s 800,000-home brownfield capacity viable requires billions in public investment.
Without a national funding mechanism, councils compete for limited pots of money while developers default to cheaper greenfield sites. The result: planning permission sits unused, brownfield land remains derelict, and green spaces disappear to meet housing targets that the government could achieve on land it already wants developed.
The question isn’t whether England has the land. It’s whether the government will fund the policy it created.