New funding for brownfield regeneration: Does it go far enough?

In advancing its ‘brownfield-first approach’ and ‘Get Britain Building’ agenda, the Labour government has announced that £68 million has been awarded through the second round of the Brownfield Land Relief Fund 2. This funding has been allocated to some 54 councils across England to support the regeneration of brownfield land. While this investment is welcomed and offers new opportunities for redevelopment, the government has not gone far enough in addressing the most serious form of land pollution: contaminated land. This opinion argues that dedicated funding is still required for contaminated land, given the complexity and varying levels of risk associated with such sites. Incentives for contaminated land clean-up were cut during the age of austerity, leaving a significant funding gap. Targeted support is therefore essential to enable local authorities to identify and remediate contaminated land sites and to encourage private sector investment. At present, the government's approach overlooks the legacy of the number of contaminated land sites that exist, and this in turn limits the number of homes that can be delivered on these types of sites. It also means that many significantly harmful tracts of land continue to be left unidentified, unremediated, and underutilised, and that the number of these is likely only to increase.