Housebuilders will be handed swifter access to build new homes around England’s commuter train stations under the latest government plans.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Observer she would ensure a “presumption in favour of building” in areas that would give households easy access to urban centres, and businesses a greater choice of potential workers. It comes after a flurry of pro-growth announcements and ahead of a major speech by Reeves this week in which she is expected to again signal a willingness to take politically difficult decisions in order to boost Britain’s fragile economy.

She said a “zoning scheme”, in which the presumption would be in favour of development in key areas such as those around train stations, would be part of reforms in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure bill – a huge piece of legislation on which many of Labour’s growth plans rest. It will be a crucial factor in whether it can achieve its goal of building 1.5m new homes over five years and making 150 decisions on major infrastructure projects.

It follows the ambitious reforms unveiled by the chancellor in July and delivered by the deputy prime minister at the end of last year, through the publication of the overhauled National Planning
Policy Framework.

In a major new growth push, the government will ensure that when developers submit an application for acceptable types of schemes in key areas – such as in high potential locations near commuter transport hubs – that the default answer to development is ‘yes’. This, the chancellor hopes, will unlock more housing at a greater density in areas central to local communities, boosting the government’s aim of growing the economy. These measures will transform communities, with more shops and homes nearer to the transport hubs that working people rely on day in day out.