This is nonsense. Where is the spare council owned land in central London or the South East in general? There might be swathes of undesirable land in the North that could be used, but there isn't any where the actual demand is. Increased supply in the South can only come from the private sector as there is no way in the world that Brown will let central government become property a speculator by buying land in the market to develop.

Private deveolpers will only take the risk of building cheap houses if they are given sufficient incentives by the state. Do we really want to spend our money on poor quality housing for people without the wit to buy a proper house?

Gareth, London,

You're another one who has bought into the idea that we have a demand/supply problem. We don't. Hundreds of thousands of properties are empty. In the early 90's supply dwindled as many developers went to the wall and/or abandoned housing developments. Prices continued to FALL though! Weird eh? Supply went down and so did prices! Yet this is how markets work - when the demand is partly aspirational and partly investment driven. Who will buy in a falling market?

The current absurd position has been caused by cheap credit. Banks and building societies enslaving a whole generation by lending them massive sums at low interest rates and the devil take the hindmost when interest rates rise. As they have in the last year. Once the market turns (and it has in my area) and investors leave the market - it will not matter if builders completely stop building. Prices will still fall. The only thing that will make prices increase again is lower interest rates. This isn't rocket science.

John Wilson, Windsor, Berkshire

Whats the fuzz all about ?

Affordable housing is not at all a complicated issue.
Once the realisation in the main stream of owner occupiers has been established that: They are paying daily interest on an overvalued asset and that this process will worsen over the short to medium future. Opportunities for new first time buyers to enter the market at affordable salary ratio's will resolve the housing shortage. In addition the greedy empty house owners will see their capital gains evaporate and also return there speculative assets to the market further eleviating the shortage.

arik schickendantz, newbury, berkshire