Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many hectares of land owned by county councils have been made available for housing development in each of the last three years.

The Department does not collect information on the previous ownership of land on which housing has been built. Although the Department has published figures for the total amounts of land changing to residential use in England in each of 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 in live table P351. The published figures can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-land-use-change-statistics It is not possible to identify the amounts previously owned by county councils.

Through the Land Release Fund, launched in August in partnership with the Cabinet Office One Public Estate programme, central government is providing £45 million of funding to support local authorities to release additional land for housing development.