Dwellings Built on Previously Developed Land
6.20 Regional Planning Guidance for the South West (and more recently the draft Regional Spatial Strategy), seeks to achieve at least 50% of new housing development on previously development land (PDL), including the conversion of existing buildings. This figure is lower than that identified for England as a whole by Planning Policy Guidance 3, which aims to reach a national target of more than 60% of all new dwellings on PDL by 2008. This reflects the relatively low availability of PDL in the South West.
6.21 As might be expected, the actual levels of land recycling achieved at a more local level across the region are far more variable (see figure). Approximately 75% of the District and Unitary Authorities within the region achieved a land recycling rate, above the RPG 50% target, during 2004/05, compared with 64% in the period 2003/04 (SWRA 2006). Provisional data collected from the local authorities in autumn 2006 suggests that this figure has increased to 85%. Completions on allocated non-PDL are increasing at a faster rate than completions on allocated PDL. The extent to which development on previously developed land can be sustained in the longer term will need to be monitored and assessed. 54% of all new build in the South West was built on PDL in 2004/05, which represents a rate that has been fairly steady since 2003 (SWRA 2006). Levels of provision on PDL before this period were much lower with just over 30% of all completions being located on brownfield sites in 1996.
