DCLG has tweaked the figures for brownfield land house building up from the 79% it published in July to 80% in the latest provisional Land Use Change Statistics for 2008 and confirms the 44dpha figure for residential development densities.
The release is the second of three estimates the Department will issue for 2008 and it says some figures are still not robust.
But the figures confirm that, in raw numbers of dwellings, the brownfield percentage was continuing to climb last year, despite the early stages of the property crash.
Developers, however, are evidently continuing to squander greenfield land released to them; the provisional 2008 figures show brownfield and greenfield residential development densities have levelled out at 49dpha and 32dpha, both the same as 2007.
Although all regions except Greater London showed a slight increase in densities, it is now very marginal.
The provisional figures show that 58% of dwellings were built on land previously classified as residential, agricultural, vacant or derelict, suggesting a high proportion of new homes continue to be built on brownfield employment land.
As no brownfield target has ever been set for employment development and residential developers are encouraged to use brownfield land, this pushes employment on to greenfield sites while improving the figures for brownfield house building.
2008 figures are not yet available for all land, but in 2007, only 55% of land being developed was brownfield and 35% of it was farm land.
In 2008, 23% (27%) of new homes were built on formerly residential land last year, 12% (14%) on farmland and 23% (24%) on vacant or derelict land.
Developers are also continuing to ignore flood risk problems, with 9% of new homes still built in areas of high flood risk - unchanged since 2006 - and 6% of land changing to residential use was in such areas.
They are also continuing to demonstrate the fragility of green belt protection, with one in 50 dwelling built in designated areas, just the same as every year since 2004.
In 2008 no less than 6% of the land converted to residential use was within a green belt, 1% more than 2007.
