The ambitious plan will see two mothballed brickworks come back back into production and increased shift working at existing works around the country.

These measures will create 120 jobs and raise production capacity by the equivalent of 25,000 new homes.

Mothballed factories at Hartlebury and Ewhurst, near Dorking will be fired-up along with a plan of other works improvements to boost production across its 14 factories.

The firm has also pledged to target demand hotspots around the country with increased imports from the continent.

Stockpiles of bricks dipped to 338m at the end of April, down almost a third from 500m at the same stage last year, after stocks of more than 1bn were recorded in 2009.

Harald Schwarzmayr, managing director of Wienerberger, said: “This capacity increase shows our absolute commitment to ensuring that enough new housing is built to meet the requirements of the market.

“The UK needs a minimum of 200,000 new homes to be built each year, approximately 35,000 more than will be started in 2014.

“With our capacity increases equating to around 25,000 homes each year, Wienerberger is capable of manufacturing the core material for more than 70% of that extra housing requirement needed.

He added: “These are big numbers, and we hope it shows exactly how serious we are about giving our customers and the industry the best possible service.”