Why infill sites are critical to solving the housing crisis
Wood Street Mews, 6 mews houses on an infill site in Walthamstow
Why should infill sites be used to help solve the housing crisis?
These sites, although often facing their own complex issues are often much quicker to develop than larger sites, which may take years to go through the planning system and then many more years to build out.
Infill sites are a great way to stimulate the local economy because they attract smaller developers and builders, likely to be more local than the larger regional housing developers and contractors.
The attention to detail and build quality of the homes produced is often much better than the ‘cookie-cutter’ approach of larger developments
Together with this, the design quality if often better, because the solutions to these types of sites often have to be imaginative and unique
The planning system is supportive of these types of site, so although there may be many risks for the developers, they can get an understanding of the ‘lay of the land’ very quickly through reviewing local policy and/or a pre-application process
Further reading
National Planning Policy Framework
Delivering Infill Development, A London 2050 briefing paper, Future of London
What is an infill site or gap site?
Simply put infill sites also referred to as ‘gap sites’ or ‘small sites’ are development sites within urban areas that are too small for a traditional developer approach to build on. Sometimes they are too small to build more than 1 or 2 homes and often they are not straightforward to develop on. They may be a funny shape, have lots of planning or other constraints (such as utilities) or be adjacent to unneighbourly uses (like railway lines or sub stations).
Why are infill sites important?
Next time you wonder around town, keep your eyes peeled for all the ‘odd’ bits of land in between buildings, garages, backland sites or awkwardly shaped plots. These sites when considered collectively represent a lot of underutilised land. They therefore offer a great opportunity to provide housing. Small developers and/or local authorities can develop these sites and create great places to live. High quality housing, which when well designed and well thought through can achieve really interesting homes. The homes are always unique and special because of the unique nature of the sites they’re on.
What policies are there to support these types of infill housing developments?
At national level the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has specific policies to support the development of these types of infill sites for housing. Policy 70 states:
“Small and medium sized sites can make an important contribution to meeting the housing requirement of an area, and are often built-out relatively quickly.”
It requires that Local Authorities target at least 10% of their housing supply from these types of infill sites (defined as being less than 1 hectare in area) and stipulates that they should be:
“giving great weight to the benefits of using suitable sites within existing settlements for homes”.
The national policy filters into local policy with many local authorities having specific policies for small sites/infill housing sites. With some authorities in the most urban areas adopting their own specific Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD’s) to support these types of development.
Lionel Gardens, a single home on the end of a terrace in Greenwich
