LIKE everyone who loves the English countryside, I shuddered when I heard the Prime Minister vow to “take the brakes off” the planning system to allow 1.5million homes to be built over the next five years. Some of them will be raised on land to be released from the green belt.
On our overcrowded island there is little more depressing than to think of flower-flecked meadows and shady woodlands being gobbled up for new housing estates. But, really, I don’t have the right to oppose an acceleration in housebuilding — and nor does anyone else who was fortunate enough to buy themselves a home before prices rocketed. I left home for my own flat when I was 23.
By 26 I had bought my first house. That is something of which many young people now can only dream. In 1996, more than half of 25 to 34-year-olds owned their own property.
That figure is now down to 41 per cent, and it is lower still in London and many parts of the South East. Many young people — including those with good jobs — can’t even afford anywhere decent to rent. Just over half of 23-year-olds are still living with their parents .
Even among 34-year-olds, one in 16 is still living in their family home. There is one over-riding reason for the unaffordability of housing. For years governments have been artificially constraining the supply of housing through the planning system.
In the 12 months to the middle of 2023, the population of England and Wales grew by 610,000. Yet we built just 180,000 homes. At the.