LABOUR unveiled plans yesterday to put local people at the front of the queue for new homes and stop speculators leaving properties empty.

Local authorities will be given powers to reserve up to half of new homes for people who have lived and worked in that area for at least two years.

Rules would be placed on homes in new “housing growth areas” to prevent them being sold for buy-to-let rental or purchased as an investment and left empty.

They plans were part of Lord Lyon’s report on how Labour can fulfil it’s pledge to end the housing shortage by 2025.

Speaking on a visit to Milton Keynes, Mr Miliband said: “Too much development land is held as a speculative investment when local people need homes.”

But Labour List editor Mark Ferguson pointed out the plan left thousands of families without a home for 11 years and urged leaders to be “far more ambitious than this.”

He added: "We’ll solve the housing crisis, slowly, over the best part of a generation.

“It’s still worth doing, but it doesn’t inspire and it leaves too many suffering for too long in the meantime.