The third and final round of BLRF offered up to £80 million for English councils to apply through their OPE partnerships. The fund is now closed for applications.
At the Spending Review 2021, the Chancellor announced a £1.8 billion package of investment to regenerate communities and level-up the country, unlocking new homes on derelict and underused brownfield land.
As part of this, up to £180 million Brownfield Land Release Fund 2 (BLRF2) capital grant funding is available to all English councils to support the release of council-owned brownfield land for housing. The first two rounds of BLRF2 awarded almost £100m over 2022/23 and 2023/24 to release land for almost 8,600 homes by March 2027.
The third and final round of BLRF offered up to £80 million for English councils to apply through their OPE partnerships. The fund is now closed for applications.
The BLRF2 will support levelling up ambitions by releasing land for new homes. The fund will support regeneration in places that need it, restoring a sense of community and local pride and spreading opportunity across England so that every place can realise its potential.
The funding will be administered through the One Public Estate programme.
One Public Estate is a partnership between the Office of Government Property (OGP) in the Cabinet Office (CO), the Local Government Association (LGA) and DLUHC. Our aim is to bring public sector bodies together in order to create better places; to use public assets more efficiently, create service and financial benefits, and release land for development to create new homes and jobs for communities.
As a well-established national programme, OPE works with 69 existing local public sector partnerships, covering combined authority, sub-regional and council areas.
Since 2017, One Public Estate (OPE) has partnered with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to deliver the Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF) and its predecessor the Land Release Fund (LRF): DLUHC funded programmes that enable councils to bring forward their surplus land for new homes.
To find out more about previously funded BLRF & LRF projects, including case studies of successful projects, visit our One Public Estate webpage.