The review also urged for thousands more British bricklayers to be trained up to help meet the government’s housing targets.

Oliver Letwin was commissioned by the government to examine what could be done to speed up the slow rate of housebuilding on major sites.

His study – which was published on 25^th June 2018 – warned that developers were slowing the system down by limiting the number of new-build homes that are released for sale at any one time.

The practice is designed to prevent a glut of new homes driving down prices in the local market.

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However, the report suggested that developers could increase the choice of design, size and tenure of new homes without impacting on the local market and therefore speed up the rate at which homes were being built and sold.

“We want to help people onto the housing ladder, and so I would like to thank Oliver and the expert panel for their excellent work,” said James Brokenshire, secretary of state for communities (pictured above).

“I was particularly interested to see that increasing the choice of design, size and tenure of new homes in helping to speed up build out rates and help deliver the homes we need and communities want.”

Oliver and his panel will submit final recommendations on improving build out rates in the autumn.