Brownfield land registers and what being on one means

A brownfield land register is a public list, kept by every local planning authority in England, of previously developed land the authority considers suitable, available and achievable for housing. Being on Part 1 of that register carries no planning permission at all. Being on Part 2 does: an entry in Part 2 grants permission in principle for housing development on that site, fixing location, land use and the amount of development, and leaving everything else to a later technical details consent.

Most registers contain only Part 1 entries. That gap between the two parts is where the value, and the confusion, sits.

What a register is and who keeps it

The Town and Country Planning (Brownfield Land Register) Regulations 2017 require each local planning authority in England to prepare and maintain a register and to publish it, reviewing it at least once a year. The power comes from the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

To be entered, land must be previously developed, of at least 0.25 hectares or capable of supporting at least five dwellings, suitable for residential development, available for it, and achievable, meaning development is likely to take place within fifteen years. Authorities apply those tests themselves, drawing on their strategic housing land availability assessment, planning history and site submissions.

Registers are published in a prescribed data format, which is why they can be searched nationally rather than council by council. The aggregated national dataset is a faster starting point than twenty separate council websites when you are sourcing sites across a region.

The difference between Part 1 and Part 2 entries

Part 1 is a list. It records the authority's view that a site meets the criteria, with fields for the site name, coordinates, area, ownership status, planning history, a minimum and maximum net dwelling range, and whether the site is deliverable.

Part 2 is a decision. The authority enters a site in Part 2 only after following publicity, consultation and notification procedures equivalent to those for a planning application, and only where it has decided the site is suitable for permission in principle. That means notifying owners and occupiers, publicising the proposal, consulting the relevant statutory bodies and taking representations into account.

The practical consequence is straightforward. A Part 1 entry is evidence you can use in a planning argument, showing the authority regards the land as suitable in principle for housing. A Part 2 entry is a consent.

Councils have been cautious about Part 2, partly because the procedure is resource intensive and partly because permission in principle removes their ability to refuse on the settled matters later.

How an entry can grant permission in principle

Where a site is entered in Part 2, permission in principle takes effect for the housing development described, together with any non-housing development that is compatible with the residential use. It settles just three things: the location, the land use and the amount of development, expressed as a range of dwellings.

It lasts five years from the date of entry, which is longer than the three years that attach to permission in principle granted on application. If no technical details consent is granted in that period, the permission in principle lapses.

Some development is excluded. Permission in principle cannot be granted for development requiring environmental impact assessment, or for development likely to have a significant effect on a European site requiring appropriate assessment. Where either applies, the site stays in Part 1 or comes out altogether. The distinction between outline permission and permission in principle matters here, because outline permission can carry EIA development and permission in principle cannot.

Getting a site added to the register

There is no statutory right to have land entered. Authorities decide what goes on, and most run an annual call for sites alongside the review, though many will accept a submission at any point.

A submission that gets taken seriously usually contains: a red line plan with the area in hectares, evidence that the land is previously developed within the policy definition, title information showing ownership and any constraints, a capacity statement with an indicative dwelling range, a summary of access and services, and a short note on known constraints and how they would be addressed.

Previously developed land is the test that trips submissions up. Agricultural buildings and land, private residential gardens, mineral workings with restoration conditions, and land where the remains of a permanent structure have blended into the landscape all sit outside the definition. Check the wording in the current Framework before you argue the point.

Where a site is plainly brownfield but the council has not listed it, read how councils run their own registers and permission in principle before making a submission, because approaches differ sharply between authorities.

Limits on what an entry covers

An entry in either part is not a substitute for the checks you would run anyway. It does not confirm that the land is free of contamination, that flood risk has been assessed, that access can be delivered, or that there is any sewer capacity.

It does not override designations. A site can be on a register and still be subject to a Tree Preservation Order, sit within a conservation area, or fall inside a nutrient neutrality catchment. Nor does it affect biodiversity net gain: the biodiversity gain condition applies to technical details consent in the ordinary way, so the habitat baseline still has to be measured, and on a site that has been vacant for years that baseline may be higher than expected.

A Part 1 entry also carries no weight against a later change of policy. Authorities remove sites at each review, and an entry is not a promise.

Moving from an entry to technical details consent

Permission in principle is only half a consent. The second stage is technical details consent, applied for under the permission in principle order, and it is where everything the earlier stage did not settle gets decided: layout, scale, appearance, landscaping, access, drainage, contamination, ecology, parking and conditions.

The authority must grant technical details consent in accordance with the permission in principle, so it cannot revisit whether housing is acceptable in that location or reopen the dwelling range. It can refuse on the details, and it does. The evidence base for that application looks like a full application: a design and access statement where required, the technical reports the site constraints demand, and the supporting document set the validation list requires.

Plan it as a full application in everything except the principle. Work through how permission in principle and technical details consent interlock before committing to the route, because the timescales are tighter than they look.

Checking the register before buying

Register data is useful due diligence and costs almost nothing to obtain. Before an acquisition, establish which part of the register the site sits in and the date of entry, the dwelling range recorded, whether any permission in principle is live and when it expires, and how the council's stated capacity compares with your own.

Then look at what the register does not say. Pull the planning history, check the constraint layers, and treat the authority's capacity figure as an opening position rather than a finding. A council that recorded a range of twelve to eighteen dwellings three reviews ago may have used a density assumption that no longer matches its adopted policy.

Follow reform news on the planning law updates timeline rather than assuming the regime is static, since the registers sit alongside permission in principle and both have been revisited more than once.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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