Councils in England are to be offered extra money for every newly-built home, as part of a government programme aimed at easing housing shortages.

Under the New Homes Bonus scheme the government will match the council tax raised on each new house for six years.

For every new home built the government will match the council tax raised on each new house for a period of six years – for a band D home that would be around £1400.

With 4.5m people now on council house waiting lists the new drive has been designed to help lower these lists and provide modern, efficient housing for their new residents.

Brendon Kenny of materials reuse platform BuilderScrap commented that, ‘this bold new initiative could help millions of people off waiting lists and into affordable housing. What the government needs to ensure is that construction site waste is minimised and that any reusable materials are put back into the community by posting them onto BuilderScrap. Statistics show that 14% (equivalent to approx 16.8m tonnes per annum)of all new construction materials are wasted and simply thrown away. Given the size of this new initiative, many other community building projects could benefit hugely if a properly managed, materials reuse policy using BuilderScrap is deployed by the construction companies’