According to Wolsey Securities, over 95% of new developments from small to medium house builders are being built on brownfield sites.

This beats the government’s national target of 60% of new homes, by 2008, should be built on these sites. Wolsey’s statistics show that smaller house builders, with schemes of a development value of up to £10m, are beating this target.

Mike Ratcliffe, chief executive of Wolsey Securities, said: “What these findings show is that small developers can use brownfield sites with greater success than many larger builders who like to roll out national house types.”

The findings follow research produced this week by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, which found that vast amounts of land that could be used for development are going to waste in towns and cities. One finding found that 60,000 new homes could be built in London alone if all the small sites close to town centres were used.