Nine out of ten new homes being built in Salford are being built on brownfield land.
That’s the findings of the latest residential development monitoring report published by Salford City Council.
The report, which covers the period April 1, 2015 to March 31 this year shows that 87.9% of new homes built in the city were on brownfield land, with just 12.1% on greenfield sites.
And despite approval being given for dozens of apartment blocks, more houses than apartments were actually built in the city over the past year.
Councillor Derek Antrobus, lead member for planning and sustainable development, said the council was encouraging developers to use brownfield sites as far as possible.
“These statistics show that 1,354 new homes were added to Salford’s housing stock last year with the bulk of development in the inner city areas of Broughton, Irwell Riverside and Ordsall. Only 164 homes were built on greenfield sites,” he said.
“Salford needs new homes and we need as many as possible to be built on brownfield sites. This not only eases pressure on green spaces but it means new homes are built closer to existing jobs, schools and shops.
“Government policy does not allow us to reject greenfield development as we could in the past. But 96% of planning permissions which have not yet been implemented are on brownfield sites.
“We want to make sure we use up brownfield land before contemplating significant release of further greenfield sites. As Salford’s population continues to grow, that will be the challenge for the next few decades.
“It is a challenge we must address today if tomorrow’s generation is to have enough homes to live in.”
The statistics show:
1,084 new homes were built last year and 270 properties converted to housing, adding 1,354 homes to Salford’s stock.
237 homes were demolished and 19 converted from housing to other uses – reducing the stock by 256. That leaves a net increase of 1,098 homes in the city.
Of the new homes 755 were one to four or more bedroom houses while 599 were one to three or more bedroom apartments. Broughton saw the most houses built and Irwell Riverside the most apartments.
Since 2003 a total of 16,512 new homes have been built in the city with over 6000 of them in Ordsall and another 1,143 properties converted or changed to housing. Langworthy saw the most conversions (341 properties).
The report also shows that 2,560 properties are under construction – just 134 of which are on greenfield land , with another 180 brownfield conversions under way.
Over 6,600 homes are yet to be built on sites where construction has already started with a further 3,909 given full planning permission and 4,012 given outline planning permission on sites where construction has not yet started. Only 535 of these are on greenfield land.
The bulk of existing planning permissions – 6,932 – are in Ordsall (4,896), Langworthy (1,217) and Irwell Riverside (819).
