Housebuilder Bellway has revealed it nearly doubled the amount of land bought for development in a bid to meet Government housing targets, despite warning over local council delays.

The FTSE 100-listed company said it contracted to buy 8,120 plots of land during the year to the end of July – about 76% more than the 4,621 bought the prior year.

This was across 51 sites – nearly double the 27 bought last year.

Bellway, which builds new housing developments across the UK, said the industry stands to benefit from the Government’s recent planning reforms.

The Labour Government has been pushing to introduce new measures to help meet its pledge to build 1.5 million homes this Parliament.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is making its way through the House of Lords, includes mandatory housing targets and reforms to planning rules to make it harder to reject developments.

However, Bellway said it was continuing to face “delays to planning decisions as local authorities are taking time to adopt new local plans” and updated national planning frameworks.

The housebuilder urged the Government to address affordability and demand issues among first-time buyers to help meet its “ambitious” housing targets.

Nevertheless, Bellway said it sold more homes over the past year with 8,749 sales completed compared with 7,654 the prior year.

It is expecting this total to surpass 9,200 homes in the year ahead.