Councils have hit back at possible government moves to strip them of planning powers to speed up housebuilding by releasing analysis that shows more than a million so-far unbuilt homes have already been granted planning permission in the last decade.

The Local Government Association said its analysis found 2,564,600 units had been given planning permission since 2009-10 and 1,530,680 had been constructed. It said this showed councils were not the block to the government’s target of creating 300,000 new homes a year.

Robert Jenrick, the housing, communities and local government secretary, is reportedly considering taking planning powers away from councils in an attempt to speed up housebuilding. Ministers are due to produce a long-awaited white paper on shaking up the planning system in the next few months.

Last week the government announced that eight local councils in London, the south-east or east of England would lose some planning powers after failing to meet targets for completed new homes.

The LGA found that the number of granted planning permissions for new homes in England almost doubled between 2012-13 and 2018-19, from 198,800 to 361,800.

While the organisation acknowledges there is an inevitable time lag between permissions being granted and the homes being built, it notes that over the same period the number of newbuild completions has risen more slowly, from 118,540 to 213,860.

The LGA argues the figures show that rather than taking planning powers from councils, the white paper should consider other measures, notably allowing local authorities to build on land that has planning permission, for example by assisting compulsory purchase on such land, and allowing councils to charge full council tax on unbuilt developments.

It is also calling on the government to change the right to buy system, under which tenants can purchase local authority homes, by letting councils keep all the money from such sales to help them to replace them.

David Renard, the leader of Swindon council and the LGA’s housing spokesman, said: “The planning system is not a barrier to housebuilding. The number of homes granted planning permission has far outpaced the number of homes being built.

“No one can live in a planning permission, or a half-built house where work on a site has begun but not been completed. Councils need powers to tackle our housing backlog and step in where a site with planning permission lies dormant and housebuilding has stalled. If we are to solve our housing shortage, councils need to be able to get building again and resume their role as major builders of affordable homes.”