Andy Burnham is set to hand mayors across the UK new powers to overrule planning decisions made by local councils and to greenlight large-scale developments.

The prime minister will unveil proposals this week to give regional mayors in 13 areas, including Manchester, Liverpool and the West Midlands, the power to take over planning decisions as well as to direct councils to refuse or take forward plans.

The regional mayors will also be able to grant developers permission upfront to start building without needing to apply.

The new rules will apply to developments of more than 150 homes, commercial spaces over 15,000 square metres, or any building 30 metres or taller, leaving decisions on smaller schemes with local councils.

The plans have been backed by 10 of the 14 devolved mayors, and will hand them powers similar to those of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who was given powers earlier this year to "call in" planning decisions to build more affordable homes across the city.

Planning decisions taken by mayors must comply with planning rules, local area plans and national policies, a constraint that keeps mayoral interventions within the existing planning framework.

Mayors will also get more of a say on how national housing funding from Homes England, the government's housing and regeneration agency, is spent in their areas, and they will be able to charge a levy on developments to fund major infrastructure.

A consultation is due to be published this week, giving councils, developers and mayors a first formal opportunity to shape the details of how the new powers would work in practice.

Housebuilders facing worst conditions since financial crisis

The government is just over a quarter of the way to its target of building 1.5m homes in England over the next five years, and housebuilders are facing the worst conditions since the financial crisis of 2008.

It is against this backdrop that ministers are proposing to shift the biggest planning decisions from local councils to regional mayors, pairing the new decision-making powers with greater influence over public housing funding.

Johan Svanstrom, chief executive of property portal Rightmove, said in July that new home developments are at "historically low levels due to continued softer build rates".

The FTSE 250 property platform said growth in its new homes business was "subdued" due to a six per cent dip in new-build developments compared to a year ago.

Svanstrom said property developers are "seeing conditions among the most difficult experienced since the global financial crisis and, as a result, new developments coming to market are at their lowest in over a decade."