London is one of the most built up local authorities in the UK with 98 per cent of the area built on, however the situation with the rest of the UK is a different story. This might not necessarily come as a major surprise given that London’s population is well over 8million and the housing needed to accommodate this, but what you might not know is that only 5.9% of land used in the UK is built on. Shocked? So were we, which is why we reveal 8 interesting facts about land use in the UK that might take you by surprise.
- London is one of the most built up local authorities in the UK with 98% of the area built on
- The greenest area of London is Richmond-Upon-Thames due to the regions high number of golf courses and acres of royal parks
- Farmland accounts for 56.7% of land used in the UK which combined with Natural (moors, forests, lakes, grasslands etc) and Green Urban land (parks, gardens, golf courses, etc) totals 93.6% of land use across the UK
- The amount of land taken up for residential development equates to just 12,700km2, 5.9% of the total 244,000km2 which makes up the UK.
- England is the most built on of the home nations at 8.8%, with Wales at 4.2%, Northern Ireland at 3.5% and Scotland at 2.1%.
- 56% of new homes built in England between 2016/17 were on brownfield land.
- 40% of land in England is restricted for new developments.
- 9.4% of the UK is taken up by peat bogs covering almost seven times as much land as all Britain’s buildings.
Regent Land & Developments is a specialist developer of brownfield land, focusing on residential and mixed-use land-led schemes. Find out more by clicking here.
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Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901294
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901297
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440
