Julian Smith has welcomed today’s announcement that Craven District Council has made a successful bid for the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s ‘Land Release Fund’. A fund of £662, 125 will now be made available for the development of small housing sites in Craven.

This fund was set up to ensure local councils release some of their unused or surplus land for housing. This will help to meet the ambition to unlock enough council-owned land for at least 160,000 homes by 2020.The release fund is jointly managed by the Local Government Association and Cabinet Office, through the One Public Estate Fund.

Housing and Planning Minister, Dominic Raab, said: ‘We are investing £45 million to build roads and provide utilities, so councils can release the land to get 7,280 new homes built. It's part of our strategy to build the homes Britain needs, and carry local communities with us. We're determined to make buying or renting more affordable for young families and those on low or middle incomes.’

Julian Smith said: ‘This is great news for our area and I pay tribute to Craven District Council for making such an ambitious bid. It is important that local authorities have access to the support they need to help them to release more land, more efficiently, and I am delighted that Craven District Council now has the funding to bring sites forward for housing that would not have otherwise been developed.’