ABOUT a third of homes approved to be built in England during the past five years have still not been finished, Shelter has found.

More than 320,000 approved homes have apparently not been built by developers. This is despite residential planning permission being granted, according to the housing charity.

The problem of so-called “phantom homes” is particularly bad in London, where about half of homes with permission have not been built.

An estimated 68 per cent of homes with planning permission have been completed over the past five years, the charity said.

It used figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government among other data to make its calculations.

Shelter said the country’s house-building system is deeply flawed and encourages developers to sit on land and gradually drip out new homes, to keep prices at a high level.

Anne Baxendale, head of communications, policy and campaigns at Shelter, said ordinary families are suffering while building firms make big profits. She said: “House builders are trickling out a handful of poor quality homes at a snail’s pace, meaning there are simply not enough affordable homes and ordinary working families are bearing the brunt. “While people across the country struggle with eye-wateringly high housing costs, developers’ profits are soaring into the billions.

“Time and again we hear the ‘red tape’ of the planning system being blamed but the real problem is a system where developers make more profit sitting on land than they would by building homes.”