The Government has stipulated that its £450m Growing Places Fund for England be used to create local "revolving funds" to pay for infrastructure works to unlock short-term development projects to provide housing or employment.
Communities secretary Eric Pickles said the Fund would only be provided to local enterprise partnerships, but local authorities will still have to support the work with their technical and financial expertise.
The Government has issued a prospectus for applications which will need to detail how revolving funds, which would allow money to be spent on infrastructure to get project moving and recovered when they are completed.
The prospectus does not specify what infrastructure work that could be funded, though DCLG said examples would include access roads, flood storage works and other road improvements.
But it stresses that such infrastructure must address immediate problems and support short-term benefits.
Land reclamation is not mentioned, although it is not actually ruled out, and "site constraints" are included.
It stresses that funding would be "locally owned", but areas would have to be large enough for a critical mass of projects to support a revolving fund.
"The Fund will be available to get stalled sites for housing development moving again, provide additional funding for infrastructure projects already in the pipeline and promote wider economic growth," said Mr Pickles.
"Local areas will be in the driving seat, with funding directed to local enterprise partnerships, which will bring private sector expertise to the prioritisation and delivery of significant infrastructure projects."
DCLG also published a provisional allocation of £449,999,998 to local enterprise partnerships, with the biggest allocations going to Pan-London (£39.4m) and the South East (East Sussex, Essex, Kent, Medway, Thurrock and Southend) (£32.6m).
