Brownfield Study takes step towards a national land use database

A report published by English Partnerships (the national regeneration agency) last month, of a study in which Landvaluescape researcher Tony Vickers played a major part, shows the way towards a full National Land Use Database (NLUD). NLUD has long been seen by Tony as a pre-condition for land value taxation (LVT), because only when it is known officially what the most valuable potential use of every piece of land is can it be valued properly for LVT.

The purpose of the NLUD Scoping Study was merely to look at ways of monitoring the way in which brownfield (previosuly developed) land sites are passing through the planning system. However one of the main conclusions of the Study Team, from Kingston University (supported by The GeoInformation Group) was that brownfield sites need to be seen as part of a wider dataset of all sites of interest to planners and developers - perhaps even of all urban and peri-urban land.

The Executive Summary of the report can be downloaded here and the full report here.

Tolny Vickers was employed on a nine month contract three days a week by Kingston University School of Surveying, as the NLUD Study Researcher. He had commenced writing up his PhD thesis before the contract was awarded to Kingston, where his Director of Studies and Chair of C-SCAIPE has been using him as an occasional lecture on Green Taxes to students on European Real Estate and Planning MA courses. He is now completing his thesis prior to taking on further research projects..