The UK government is to provide councils across the UK with a multi-million-pound funding boost to help unlock disused brownfield sites and get the “country building again”.

When Labour came to power in July, it pledged to build 1.5 million new homes in the form of new towns and ‘Georgian-style’ houses.

To do this, the government said it would reform compulsory purchase compensation rules, allowing more sites to be unlocked for affordable housing development, as well as relaxations over building in the grey belt – defined as brownfield sites and poor-quality areas in the green belt.

The government has now announced it is committing to this pledge with an investment of £68m that will be divided among 54 councils across the UK to transform brownfield sites into land suitable for building new homes.

The funding will be delivered through the three-year £180m Brownfield Land Release Fund 2, which was launched in July 2022 to allow local authorities in England to be able to build on blocked brownfield...