Shadow housing secretary and deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner pledged to work with the private sector to build  “new towns” aimed at meeting a commitment to construct 1.5m new homes over five years.

She said the party would appoint a new towns taskforce of independent experts to earmark sites for the first of its new towns before the end of its first year in power.

In a speech to the UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum in Leeds, Rayner said Labour would include guaranteed new transport links and GP surgeries, and design codes that ensured buildings with local character in tree-lined streets.

“A list of projects will be announced within our first 12 months of government, so we can start building the towns of the future within months, not decades,” she said.

“Developers who deliver on their obligations to build high quality, well designed and sustainable affordable housing, with green spaces and transport links and schools and GP surgeries nearby, will experience a new dawn under Labour. ”

“But those who have wriggled out of their responsibilities for too long will be robustly held to account.”

She added: “The postwar period taught us that when the government plays a strategic role in house building, we can turbo-charge growth to the benefit of working people across Britain.”