Last edited 26 Jun 2019

Amberfield land

On 15 September 2014, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) published 'Property in Politics', a report which it claimed set out a bold new vision for the property market. The report followed the largest ever consultation carried out by the RICS.

One of the key recommendations of the report was that a new land classification should be created, ‘amberfield land’, which would identify ‘ready to go land’. It suggested that creating a pipeline of ready-to-go amberfield land would increase the supply of housing and create new development opportunities.

Amberfield land would be an addition to the existing classifications of:

Greenbelt or ‘greenfield land’ – which establishes a buffer zone between urban and rural land, and
‘Brownfield land’ – defined in Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) in 2010 as ‘previously-developed land…which is or was occupied by a permanent structure...’

There have been various attempts to introduce policies to encourage new development on brownfield land and to protect the green belt. However, brownfield sites can be difficult to develop, and in an interview on BBC2’s Newsnight in November 2012, planning minister Nick Boles, suggested that more than 388,000 hectares of open countryside would have to be built on to meet housing demand.

The RICS suggested that "both classifications block or slow development and local growth is being impeded by extensive battles to bring forward land".

The new amberfield classification would create better certainty, reduce costs, encourage infrastructure investment and allow faster development of new homes. Re-designating land as amberfield would allow local authorities to showcase sites that are ready to go, and attract inward investment.

The RICS proposed that local authorities and local communities work together to include a set quota of amberfield land in local plans that would be ready to be developed for housing. It suggested in the announcement of the report that this quota should be between 30% and 50% (although it is not clear what this represented) but that it would be adjusted through a process of open consultation to meet the needs of the local area. The RICS also proposed that amberfield sites would have to be developed within five years, and so local authorities would have to approve planning consent within a set time frame, or risk being classed as ‘failing’.