In the ““Laying the Foundations: a housing strategy for England”” (November 2011) we set out that we would undertake a pilot of the land disposal elements of the land auctions model on public land. We are working with the local authorities in Hastings and West Lancashire on land owned by the Homes and Communities Agency and the local authority in Richmondshire on land owned by the Ministry of Defence.The local authorities are taking the leading role in the Pilot, working in partnership with the landowners. They will make arrangements for applying for development consents and will sell the sites in open competition, sharing the uplift in land value with the landowners, in the way agreed between them.As a pilot to test this approach we were keen to have sites of different sizes and characteristics, but importantly where local partners wanted to be involved and where the sites could support local need and objectives for housing. The Department will be capturing the learning and evidence from the pilot to inform the Government's further consideration of ways in which the land auctions model could be used more widely.