THE Prime Minister is set to announce a 'rewriting' of the rules on planning to force developers to build quicker and 'restore the dream' of home ownership. 

The changes could see developers and councils forced to build lots more homes quickly in some of Britain's least affordable areas, such as Oxfordshire. 

In a speech in London later, Theresa May will warn developers that if they have been too slow to build houses in the past, this may count against them when applying for further planning permissions.

It comes after housing secretary Sajid Javid warned 'Nimby' councils that powers could be taken off them if they fail to build enough new homes. 

Mr Javid has also outlined plans to build up to five new garden towns between Oxford and Cambridge as part of a new super region which could even have its own council.

Theresa May is expected to outline the new rules in an attempt to make the system fairer and cut red tape and barriers to building and stop developers sitting on land, waiting for it to grow in value. 

She will warn that the gap between permissions granted and homes built it 'still too large' and will announce new measures including fast tracking planning permissions.

Speaking at a national planning conference, the Prime Minister is expected to say: "We cannot bring about the kind of society I want to see, unless we tackle one of the biggest barriers to social mobility we face today: the national housing crisis.”

"In much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do so.”

Developers will be stopped from building on large sites that are not included in councils' local plans and existing protections against building on green belt land are set to be maintained. 

The first major overhaul in the National Planning Policy Framework is six years will also determine how many homes councils should be building each year, taking in to account house prices and wages of key workers in the area. 

Mr Javid told the Sunday Times: "It will not longer allow Nimby councils that don't really want to build the homes that their community needs to fudge the numbers. 

"For the first time it will explicitly take into account market prices. If you are in an area where the unaffordability ratio is much higher you will have to build even more."

Oxford is frequently cited as the UK's most unaffordable city with average property prices of 11.5 times the average wage.