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Government car parks could deliver £6bn for the Treasury and 110,000 new homes

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Government-owned car parks could become the unlikely saviour of Britain’s housing crisis and deliver billions to the Treasury, a new report has found.

If just 15pc of the land occupied by England’s 103,000 public sector-owned car parks was developed, the Government could deliver 110,000 new homes in areas with good public transport, according to research by property consultancy Knight Frank.

The sale of this land would raise £6bn for HM Treasury – a sum that would more than cover the £3.8bn bill of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday.

The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which has now mapped a picture of which central government departments own the country’s car parks (see below).

Overall, the land covered by these car parks across England could be used to build 2.1 million homes – seven times the Government’s annual target of building 300,000 new properties.

The car parks closest to public transport links, and therefore most suitable for property development, are heavily concentrated in London, where the country’s shortage of homes is most acute.

In June, the Government released plans to examine how it can more effectively use the land it owns.

Repurposing these car parks is feasible. Knight Frank’s study found that 91pc of England’s public sector-owned car parks were within a five-minute walk of another car park. Two thirds of the car parks do not provide meaningful access to high street retail. This means there is scope to release land for new homes while maintaining necessary car parking services.

Ian McGuinness, author of the Knight Frank report, said the findings coincided with a need to reassess the scale and use of space for private vehicles.

The January National Travel Attitudes Survey found that 74pc of respondents agreed that motor vehicle use should be reduced to improve public health.

The Knight Frank study “shines a light on the sheer scale of the opportunity to deliver much needed housing on Government-owned land,” said Mr McGuinness.

It would provide an alternative to the political minefield of building on green belt land around the capital.

Stuart Baillie, also of Knight Frank, said: “Given the express need for housing and the mounting pressure on our green spaces and conservation assets it is imperative that all ‘brownfield’ and under-utilised land is properly assessed for its development potential.”