PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Housing: Construction (15 January 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken to maximise the use of Build Now, Pay Later models on surplus public land; and how many sites have been disposed of through these models since 2010.

Asked by:
Emma Reynolds (Labour)

DCLG encourages all Departments to use Build Now Pay Later, where appropriate, when disposing of surplus sites, getting development moving and new homes built. Departments have committed to release as much land as possible on Build Now Pay Later terms, where there is market demand and where it represents value for money and is affordable. In 2011 we published guidance on using Build Now Pay Later and this is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/5925/2055143.pdf

Build Now Pay Later is welcomed by partners and is proving to be an effective tool in speeding up the delivery of new homes,following the last Administration's housing crash where upfront investment was significantly reduced, impacting on the amount of new sites that could be opened up. This particularly applied to complex, brownfield and strategic sites, where significant up-front capital is required to fund infrastructure and remediation works.

Through the Homes and Communities Agency this Department has utilised Build Now Pay Later for the vast majority of its site disposals and nearly all of the large ones. Since April 2013, of the 28 sites that were disposed of by the Homes and Communities Agency using its Disposal Framework, 27 sites were offered with the benefit of Build Now Pay Later.

Answered by:
Sir Brandon Lewis (Conservative)
5 February 2015