Over one million homes could be built on England’s brownfield land, research from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) suggests.

A survey of local authorities by the University of the West of England for CPRE suggests at least 976,000 new homes could be built on identified brownfield sites across the country. However it is thought this figure could be far higher, as it fails to include underused land such as car parks that could be used for residential development.

More than 550,000 houses could be constructed on currently vacant or derelict land that does not hold planning permission, with over half of this space being located in the south east, the east of England and London.

The news came as Government figures revealed house building starts fell by 10% in England between July and September, prompting outrage from housing associations.

The CPRE has now raised pressure on the Government to drive through a ‘brownfield first’ policy in order to protect the countryside during a period of high demand for new houses. Paul Miner, planning campaign manager at the CPRE, said that while this research demonstrated ‘the huge existing capacity for housing on brownfield land’, he added ‘we can and must do more to get these sites redeveloped’.

Responding to the report, housing and planning minister Brandon Lewis said: ‘This Government wants to see the maximum amount of brownfield land being used to build new homes, whilst also maintaining protections for our beautiful countryside. That is why our planning reforms encourage councils to use brownfield land for new buildings, free up disused public sector land for redevelopment and why we’ve invested £235m into bringing 80,000 long term empty homes back into use since 2010.’

The National Housing Federation (NHF) last week highlighted figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government, which showed housing starts were estimated to have fallen from 36,500 in the June quarter to 33,000 over the September quarter.

NHF chief executive, David Orr, said: ‘Housing associations are ready and willing to build more homes, but they need the government to play their part to free up land and change how new homes are funded, so that they can deliver them on the scale we need.’