The government has announced funding for a series of housing zones that will provide thousands of new homes across the country.

More than £6m is being made available to enable local councils to establish partnerships with private developers and speed up the development of brownfield sites. It’s hoped the project will help to deliver up to 45,000 new homes by 2020.

The funding comes on top of a £1.2 billion Starter Home Fund, which is already in place.

Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said: “Housing Zones offer enormous potential to use brownfield land for new homes. This funding will play an important part in getting work underway which will lead to new homes and more security for aspiring homeowners.”

Meanwhile, the government is pressing ahead with the Housing and Planning Bill, which is designed to ease the current housing shortage.

Measures include:

• new affordable Starter Homes – a new legal duty will be placed on councils to guarantee the delivery of Starter Homes on all reasonably sized new development sites, and to promote the delivery of Starter Homes in their area
• permission in principle for sites identified in plans and brownfield registers – to give certainty around the sites that are suitable for housing, while protecting the green belt
• planning reforms to support small builders – requiring councils to ensure they have shovel ready plots to match the local demand for custom build.

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