A new tax on building homes to pay to fix unsafe cladding will come in soon. In theory, the tax was meant to be levied at a much lower rate for projects that redevelop brownfield sites (e.g. disused factories, shopping centres, and car parks). The logic is sound: building on these sites is more expensive and extra costs could make many projects unviable.

One problem: they are using a definition of brownfield (“at least 75% of the land in the planning red-line boundary must itself be “previously developed”. Land is only “previously developed” if a building stood on that exact patch of ground at some point after 1 July 1948”) that means almost every major brownfield site doesn’t qualify.