The Government has announced a raft of new measures in an attempt to provide much-needed homes in urban areas and on brownfield sites.

The housing secretary Robert Jenrick today said that the housing need formula would be updated to help councils build more family homes and make the most of vacant buildings and underused land to protect green spaces.

He also said the Government intends to revise the so-called ‘80/20 rule’ which guides how much funding is available to local areas to help build homes.

This will establish a new principle to ensure funding is not just concentrated in London and the South East.

‘This Government wants to build more homes as a matter of social justice, for intergenerational fairness and to create jobs for working people,’ said Mr Jenrick.

‘We are reforming our planning system to ensure it is simpler and more certain without compromising standards of design, quality and environmental protection.

‘The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated and magnified patterns that already existed, creating a generational opportunity for the repurposing of offices and retail as housing and for urban renewal.

‘We want this to be an opportunity for a new trajectory for our major cities – one which helps to forge a new country beyond COVID – which is more beautiful, healthier, more prosperous, more neighbourly and where more people have the security and dignity of a home of their own.’

Mr Jenrick also announced that the Government is allocating more than £67m in funding to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester Mayoral Combined Authorities to help them deliver new homes on brownfield land.

He also said that in January the Government plans to launch a new £100m Brownfield Land Release fund to support brownfield development, estates regeneration, development on public sector land and self- and custom-build serviced plots in coming forward.