Council Wins Brownfield Register Funding

Rossendale Borough Council has successfully bid for £10,000 to pilot a Brownfield Register under the Brownfield Register Pilots Fund.

The Council was one of the 36 successful bids (also including Pendle and Hyndburn Council’s) covering 58 authorities. The pilot has 4 key stages which aims to see Local Authorities share best practice. The 4 key stages identified by central government are;

–       Identifying Provisional Sites

–       Assessing Site Suitability

–       Compiling a Pilot Register

–       Publishing a Pilot Register

The Government has set out its commitment to introduce a statutory brownfield register and ensure that 90% of suitable brownfield sites have planning permission for housing by 2020. Through brownfield registers, a standard set of information will be kept up-to date and made publicly available to help provide certainty for developers and communities and encourage investment in local areas.

This project provides an exciting opportunity for local planning authorities to work together and with the Department of Communities and Local Government, to shape and develop this policy.

The experiences of pilot authorities will feed into the development of secondary legislation and guidance to support local planning authorities more widely. By participating in the project, pilot authorities will gain early experience of preparing brownfield registers, and have some early data on the amount of brownfield land in their area that is suitable for housing.

This work will then be able to feed into our work on the Local Plan, and meeting Rossendale’s housing need.

Cllr Christine Lamb welcomed the funding to the Council saying;

“This will be a vital piece of work, having a comprehensive brownfield register will help us in our Local Plan and will help identify development sites during the difficult balancing act of protecting our green spaces and meeting Rossendale’s housing need.”

Pilot Brownfield Registers will need to be published locally by the end of June 2016