Gavin Barwell, the Housing Minister has announced a new £18 million fund to speed up house building on large sites, but admits that the government needs to do better.

From today, councils can bid for a share of the ‘capacity fund’ to tackle planning issues that can cause delay and prevent builders from getting on site and starting work quickly.

The money aims to accelerate delivery of up to 800,000 homes and infrastructure across large sites in England.

It will primarily be aimed at large sites of 1,500 units or more, and Housing Zones, which support the development of brownfield land. Developers will also be able to apply for funding from the Home Building Fund, which is making £3 billion available to house builders.

Additional measures include creating six new Housing Zones to support the development of 10,000 homes on brownfield land, and funding for a new locally-led Garden Town at Otterpool Park, Shepway in Kent which aims to deliver up to 12,000 new homes.

The Housing Minister said: "We want to turbo-charge house building on large sites to get the homes built in the places people want to live, so that this country works for everyone, not just the privileged few. These sites offer enormous potential to transform brownfield land into new homes and our £18 million funding will help get them built much sooner. Furthermore, we are getting behind plans for a new Garden Town which offers a unique opportunity to boost the local economy, jobs and provide new homes in Shepway, Kent."

However, housebuilding targets have been consistently missed and have led to rising prices and a shortage of affordable homes.

According to recent figures, the government is currently only building 170,000 homes every year.

Mr Barwell admitted this isn't enough and said: "We clearly need to do better. We inherited a position in 2010 where house building rates in this country were at their lowest since the 1920s. We've seen significant progress.

But absolutely we are still not at the rate that we need to be in order to meet our ambition to get this country building the homes that are so desperately needed."

Shadow Secretary of State for Housing John Healey MP said: "In the last six years we've built fewer homes in this country than under any Prime Minister since the 1920s. Now Ministers are admitting that six years of failure could stretch to ten. Since 2010, the housing budget has been slashed, the number of people who are homeless has doubled and the number of home-owners has fallen by 200,000.

The country deserves a proper plan for fixing the housing crisis, not more hot air."