Cheshire East Council leader Michael Jones today welcomed the Chancellor's announcement relaxing planning rules on brownfield sites.
In order to boost the country's house-building programme, local authorities will be required to grant automatic planning consent to developers wishing to build on brownfield land.
Brownfield sites are sites that have been previously developed before being left to stand idle such as a disused factory.
Councillor Jones said: "I welcome this announcement by George Osborne as a policy to get many acres of waste land in our towns and cities turned into decent homes.
"This will stifle the temptation for developers to attack the greenbelt with the excuse that building on the greenbelt is essential to meet housing supply targets.
"Brownfield sites are not always attractive to developers because of the cost of clean up but hopefully the removal of planning red tape will provide them with the incentive they need.
"I echo the statement by the Business Secretary that this will speed up schemes and preclude the need for building in the green belt and we in Cheshire East see ourselves as a vanguard of this new policy."
Cheshire East has 181 brownfield sites currently under construction and a further 375 sites about to be developed giving a total of 3,696 new homes.
Around 47 hectares of brown land has been identified across the borough as having development potential and the capacity for more than 1,400 new homes.
