Bridging Loans News:-New ways for councils to share data with developers to help them find brown field land suitable for building on, are being launched by the government.
A national index of all brown field data, simplifying and improving the quality of the current brown field land registers, is to be introduced.
Housing minister, Esther McVey, said: “The UK property sector is on the cusp of a digital revolution. It’s time to harness new technology to unlock land and unleash the potential of house builders in all parts of the country and to revolutionise the way in which we buy homes.”
The government argues SMEs often don’t have dedicated teams to find sites, appraise them and craft planning applications. It believes access to digital tools that employ multiple data sets would save time and support the wider developer sector.
Federation of Master Builders’ research shows the most common barrier for increasing output was lack of viable land, despite capacity to build one million homes on council brown field land.
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Brokers Hank Zarihs Associates said commercial development finance lenders would welcome initiatives to improve information sharing and speed up the planning process.
Other measures include opening up compulsory purchase order, CPO, data so property technology companies can access details such as energy performance certificates and the square footage of buildings. The government pointed out that a large proportion of Birmingham’s regeneration has been delivered via CPOs in the past 15 years.
People power set to rev up
Also, the government wants communities to see models and interactive maps of planned developments rather than one or two pictures. It also would like to offer people the chance to comment on planning applications online or on the phone in the way online banking is used.
Ms McVey met with 700 property tech companies yesterday to look at “bringing about a digital revolution” in the sector.
Round table participants included Urban Intelligence, who help developers and landowners locate sites, The Future Fox, whose digital platform StreetBuilder supports community engagement, and Wayhome which co-invests in properties with customers.
The government estimates the UK property technology sector is a growing industry worth £6bn and with a high proportion of global investment.
