THE North East Hampshire district of Hart is the only authority in the county included in the Government’s brownfield registers pilot scheme, according to environmental charity CPRE Hampshire.

And this includes a site at South Warnborough – on the road between Alton and Odiham.

Nationally, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has analysed the brownfield registers pilot scheme and produced a study entitled ‘Housing Capacity on Suitable Brownfield Land’.

The new brownfield registers show significant increases in number and housing capacity of suitable brownfield sites.

Across England, these sites could provide at least 1.1 million new homes which, the CPRE says, “suggests that the Government has previously severely underestimated brownfield capacity”.

Edward Dawson, spokesman for CPRE’s North East Hampshire District Group, said: “Hart’s pilot brownfield register lists all the sites with planning permission that have yet to be built. However, some sites in Hart do not currently have planning permission.

“These include a rural site in South Warnborough suitable for housing and a large site at the former Pyestock works called Hartland Park. Another site in Hart, reviewed since the study, is also available.

“It suggests that most brownfield sites without planning permission; ones which should form the basis of a new brownfield register, are yet to be identified.

“CPRE welcomes the fact that, even at this early stage, Hart has managed to identify sites that can accommodate nearly three times as many homes as it had forecast would come forward from brownfield sites.”

The CPRE in North East Hampshire is encouraging the identification of further, suitable brownfield sites across Hart and in neighbouring boroughs, to protect many threatened greenfield sites from unnecessary development.