Neighbourhood planning groups are being encouraged to apply for a share of £22.5m to help decide the future development of their local areas.

The funding will provide grants to pay for local engagement events, specialist planning advice and marketing costs.

Housing and planning minister, Brandon Lewis, said nearly 1,400 areas are already using new neighbourhood planning powers to decide where new homes and businesses should be built.

Mr Lewis said: ‘From the very beginning we’ve been clear that we wanted to give power back from Whitehall to local communities and with six million people living in areas producing neighbourhood plans the success of our reforms is clear.

‘Now I want to keep up the momentum, and encourage more areas to come forward and this new £22m programme for grant applications will do just that. It will also support lots more areas and enable people to take control over planning in their neighbourhood.’

The Government has launched an online toolkit to help communities navigate the planning process, and the programme will run until 2018.