Network Rail and public bodies to unlock housing land

Network Rail and the government’s London & Continental Railways are set to create a property company with the potential to deliver 40,000 new homes over the next ten years, according to the Treasury.

The company will be operational later this year, with the chancellor Rachel Reeves confirming the first four sites under the deal. These are Newcastle Forth Yards, a 100-acre regeneration site which could deliver 5,000 new homes; Manchester Mayfield with an opportunity for 1,500 new homes; a mixed-use development with 425 homes in Cambridge and 200 new homes in Nottingham.

This partnership, the Treasury said, would attract public and private investment to develop brownfield sites.

The government has also established a taskforce to unlock surplus public defence land in England and accelerate housing provision “by removing barriers that have prevented houses coming forward at pace on vacant public land for too long”, the Treasury said.

Defence secretary John Healey said there was long-term potential to build more than 100,000 homes on surplus defence land.

Sites to be brought forward under this “cross-government collaboration”, involving the Ministry of Defence, Homes England, Network Rail and “other government bodies”, include a scheme in Ripon which the Ministry of …