To assist this, the Department will work with the Local Government Management Board, local authorities, English Partnerships and others to establish a National Land Use Database that will provide, as a priority, a consistent assessment of previously developed land available for housing. This information will provide a basis for RPCs to set realistic regional targets together with indicative targets for structure plans and unitary development plans, and carried through into local plans. Performance at the national level will be measured and regularly reported on to monitor our success in maximising the use of previously-developed land. We are sure that when local authorities are given more responsibility for decisions they will exceed the current performance in each region. It makes sense, in both the new national target and the regional targets, to include not only previously developed land, but also re-use of existing buildings, through conversions.
Conversions make an appreciable contribution to providing new homes in many of our towns and cities.
We will review the national figure in the light of the better information on site availability which our National Land Use Database will help local authorities to obtain, and also once the RPCs have set their own regional targets. We believe this to be a realistic and soundly-based approach which will protect the countryside and encourage good quality urban development. The Housing White Paper target has been monitored in terms of the proportion of land changing to residential use that was previously developed. It could also be measured in terms of the proportion of new housing on re-used sites. The results for both measures are shown in Table 3.