Work to simplify ‘complex’ brownfield scheme

Members of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Overview and Scrutiny Committee discussed the Brownfield Land Remediation programme at a meeting on Monday.

A report by a task and finish group set up to look into the issue highlighted problems developers faced when trying to access funding to help clean up brownfield sites and turn them into much needed homes in the region.

They made a series of recommendations designed to make the system more simplistic. These were endorsed by committee members and a further report will go before the WMCA board in October.

The task and finish group said the brownfield reclamation application process was “resource heavy and unnecessarily complex”.

Other concerns highlighted included cash flow issues being a barrier to bringing sites forward for housing, varying brownfield land registers across local authorities and evidence of biodiversity on sites.

The group said focus needs to be given to people who have successfully delivered WMCA grant funded projects before and applications for small schemes or from small developers.

They have recommended a review is undertaken whether a more flexible approach could be adopted where grants can be paid earlier.

Brownfield land is land which was previously used for industrial or commercial purposes.

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker wants to build around 20,000 new social homes in the next three years.

Committee chairman Councillor Andrew Burrow said: “We held a series of meetings with business representatives, academics and other interested parties to try and understand whether there were any barriers to the combined authority’s programme of getting brownfield sites basically into housing where they needed reclamation, where they had been contaminated in some way or another.

“We made four recommendations and they were about streamlining the process, just finding tweaks we could do to make it a bit easier."

Linda Horne, WMCA head of finance, said: “As officers we will take away the recommendations and look to work with local authority colleagues where appropriate to try to facilitate some of these recommendations and certainly we’re already taking steps.

“We’ve streamlined the pipeline process into 'how do we get applications through' and the housing team are working with the single assurance team to simplify and make as efficient as possible the process in terms of application.”