Ministers see train stations as key to building 1 million homes - reports

Newspaper reports suggest that a housing white paper to be published next week will outline plans to increase the 10,000 new homes planned on railway land by moving car parks underground.

Both The Sun and Daily Mail have now reported that communities secretary Sajid Javid believes railway land is key to further increasing brownfield development. The latter claimed that Javid believes a collaboration between Network Rail and Homes and Communities Agency at stations such as York Central, Swindon and Taunton could secure more than the 10,000 homes currently planned. Network Rail has so far delivered land for 1,200 homes in its 2015 to 2020 investment period.

The Sun yesterday hailed the Prime Minister as "the fairy hodmother" for prioritising house-building, while The Mail reported a Government source as saying that railway stations are "an ideal location because they already have good transport links. Many of them have enormous carparks, which are not a great use of space,so why not move them underground?"

Discuss this at Rail Stations and Property 2017: landor.co.uk/railstations/2017