Housebuilders will have to commit to delivery timeframes before they get planning permission, and submit annual reports to councils showing their progress, under new rules to ensure homes with planning permission are built out.
As well as losing their land, the Government has said that housebuilders who repeatedly fail to hit their targets could be denied future permissions.
Cllr Adam Hug, LGA Housing Spokesperson, said: “We are pleased the Government has acted on the LGA’s call for it to be easier for councils to penalise developers and acquire stalled housing sites, or sites that have not been built out to timescales contractually agreed, ideally with the recovery being made at pre-planning gain prices.
“Local government shares ambitions to boost housebuilding, and councils work hard with communities and developers to deliver new sites. Too often they are frustrated when developers do not build the homes they have approved.
“While intervention of this sort is a last resort, this move is crucial to help ensure meaningful buildout of sites.”
He added: “The ability to apply a ‘Delayed Homes Penalty’ is a power that councils have been asking for and means that local taxpayers are not missing out on lost income because of slow developers – but it must be set at a level that incentivises buildout.”