End Planning Controls - Or Immigration

So Brown wails about the shortage of 'affordable' housing.

The reason housing is so expensive and short is because demand is growing and supply is restricted.

Brown wants more 'affordable' housing, and is hoping extra can be built on government 'brownfield' sites.

The main problem is the restriction on land supply caused by the requirement for planning permission. The problem will not be solved by public building programmes. The market will do a much better job, given the chance.

There is plenty of land, it is just people aren't allowed to build on it. So it is that England's gardens are built on and infilled, and unpopular flats, rather than houses, are constructed.

And no one - Labour, Conservative, or Liberal - dare mention immigration. Even the government's own 2006 estimates reckoned on an expected 130,000 net immigrants a year who would require 65,000 new houses between them.

Gordon Brown hopes for an extra 40,000 houses a year, but is worried about upsetting the green belt and NIMBY lobbies. A surer way to make his numbers add up would be to reduce immigration.

Personally, I would abolish the planning system, and let people build the sort of houses they want to live in, where they want, without restriction.

The planning system is a way for the property 'haves' to maintain their privileged position - high property values, and good views. Everyone else squeezes into smaller, more tightly built accommodation, on rubbishy 'brownfield' land. The old back to back slums will compare well with some of the stuff being thrown up now.

Those who are worried about building on greenfield sites should look to cut immigration: it is hypocritical to support both large scale immigration and green belt policies, at the same time complaining about the lack of affordable housing.

Those who are worried about their children or grandchildren ever being able to afford a house should recognise that the biggest cause of high property prices and unaffordable housing is the planning system's restriction of supply - and the solution is to end the planning system.