Challenge
Unlocking underused land to build affordable homes
With supply shortages across the country, the simple answer to the rent being too high is, of course, to build more housing. But the reality is significantly more complicated than simply jump-starting construction. A variety of market forces, policy decisions, and demographic changes have converged to make building affordable housing a difficult, and politically fraught, proposition. Still with homelessness on the rise, we need to find ways to create space out of underutilized areas that are openly available to provide affordable, sustainable housing in the future.
The DemoDev project runs in collaboration with Ordnance Survey, Land Registry and Birmingham City Council in response to a brief to create data-led solutions to help combat the housing crisis. DemoDev will harness the power of Land Registry and Ordnance Survey data to unlock underused land and turn it into open designed, sustainable, adaptable homes.