DCLG is consulting on proposals to cut back collection of Land Use Change Statistics which have long provided underpinning data for brownfield progress and damage due to sprawl to minimize the burden on data producers and to align them with its policy priorities.
It has published a consultation paper seeking views on LUCS data collection as it says it wants to align these with users' priority needs and to maximize value for money.
The paper also proposes cuts in local authority housing statistics and scrapping regional data altogether following closure of the government office network.
"The Land Use Change Statistics are a major and well used data set for the wider planning and housing user communities," says the paper.
"Reports are published annually and an extensive set of live tables and supporting user documentation are made available on the Department's website for external users. They also have a rich potential for secondary analysis."
Despite this, it says they are complex and relatively expensive to collect.and DCLG wants to meet users' needs in a cost-effective way.
The LUCS data set has recorded previous and new uses of land in 25 categories since 1985 and the numbers of homes built and demolished since 1989.
This means there is a long data set and the only recent change was the addition of residential gardens in 2010 as part of the so-called "garden grabbing" row.
But now DCLG proposes three options - no change, only keeping changes to developed use and omitting changes to greenfield land and only collecting data on a subset of developed uses "determined by the Department's policy and business needs".
Respondents are asked to indicate which of 16 categories, including "vacant land previously developed" and "derelict land" they consider essential.
But LUCS have become a major embarrassment to the Government's plans to change planning policy as they show with great clarity both the damage done by urban sprawl and the benefits which brownfield policies have secured.
“The amount and proportion of new development, both housing and commercial, on brownfield sites is a vital indicator of sustainable development,” says Campaign to Protect Rural England senior planning campaigner Paul Miner.
“We need reliable information to make sure that both Government and local authorities are held to account for making the best use of land. Therefore, we believe strongly that the Government should continue to collect and report land use change data every year, and not less regularly as this consultation is suggesting.”
Responses are required by 2 April.
