Developers are sitting on land for more than 130,000 homes in England that have never been built – the worst gap on record, according to new analysis.

The record gap between planning permissions granted and new homes being built has led to calls for tough new penalties to be enforced against developers that sit on land rather than build.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Labour was considering forcing landowners to give up sites for a fraction of their value in an effort to slash the cost of council-housebuilding.

North-west England and London had the worst gaps, with only 50% of new homes being built where planning permission had been obtained between 2012 and 2017.

The analysis of housing ministry (MCHLG) figures showed that in 2016-17, planning permission for 313,700 new homes was given, but only 183,570 homes built, meaning a notional annual gap of more than 130,000 homes, the biggest divergence since records began in 2006.

The percentage of homes built versus permission granted was just 58%, a rate that has been roughly steady since 2012.

In London last year, there was a gap of more than 29,000 homes, a similar gap to the north-west, where the gap is more than 27,000, just 44% of the units given permission.

The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, who undertook the analysis, said the government needed radical new powers to end land banking. Ministers must “take decisive action, not more warm words,” he said.

He said the government should offer “housing delivery contracts”, where developers sign up to targets for the rate of housebuilding on a site, with fines if these targets are missed.

Healey said that would provide much greater power over the speed at which homes are built. Councils only have the power to give or refuse permission to build.

Earlier this year, Labour proposed the creation of a new English Sovereign Land Trust, to buy discounted land and allocate it to a range of developers, breaking up the number of big firms on larger sites.

Landowners sell at a price that factors in a significant increase in value after obtaining planning consent, meaning a hectare of agricultural land worth £20,000 can sell for closer to £2m if it is zoned for housing. Developers regularly deny using land to speculate, arguing more profit can usually be made from building.

Labour is considering a policy to give the Land Trust powers to buy sites at closer to the lower price, by changing the 1961 Land Compensation Act so the state could compulsorily purchase land at a price that excluded the potential for future planning consent.

“The chancellor must use the budget to break big developers’ stranglehold over new homes and speed up housebuilding,” Healey said, saying housing was still below pre-crisis levels despite a number of government initiatives.

“This means giving councils the power to set tough new rules to ensure homes get built quickly. The number of new social rented homes is stuck at the lowest level since the second world war. We need decisive action, not more warm words from ministers.”

Greg Beales, the Shelter housing charity’s director of policy and campaigns, said the UK could not afford to fall behind. “We have become overly reliant on big developers who will only build as fast as they can sell, but many people simply can’t afford the homes they have to offer,” he said. “This has created a massive logjam, which can only be unblocked if we bring down the cost of land and start building the social homes which people actually need.”

The former cabinet minister Oliver Letwin is chairing an independent review of land banking, which Shelter said it hoped would recommend strong legislative changes to the Land Compensation Act to bring down the cost of land. It is expected to report back next week.

Housing minister Kit Malthouse said: “There is no mission more urgent than making our housing market work, and we are committed to building 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s.

“Building more of the homes people want on large sites more quickly is an important part of this. We asked Sir Oliver Letwin to carry out an independent review into the build out rate so we can get more properties built more quickly and he will report back shortly. This is all part of our drive to build more, better, faster.”