It is a newly minted British tradition to gripe that a terrible plague of property shows is ravaging television (I assume people are complaining about them during the ad breaks) - and I wouldn't disagree with the complaint.

But it's plain silly to point the finger at these programmes for puffing up the property market, forcing people into taking out massive mortgages or into negative equity. Blaming such shows and their presenters for the present uncertain state of the property market is akin to blaming TV chefs for the great bulge in obesity. Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the rest recommend healthy eating and responsible shopping - yet many people ignore their advice and binge recklessly. Likewise, I hope that I give sound advice rather than inveigling viewers into “get rich quick” schemes.

In recent weeks I've been described as a “property porn queen” in the New Statesman, sniped at on the pages of The Guardian and lambasted by Panorama for excessively inflating house prices.

I only wish that the show I present was as influential as some have been claiming. If it was, people might have taken notice of a campaign we have been running on Location, Location, Location, asking for a review of stamp duty, a tax that without doubt has contributed to the drop in the number of house sales.

But it looks highly unlikely our pleas will be heeded. It is much easier to fire off flippant articles blaming property TV shows than properly examining why there has been a fall in transactions and - in some places, though not all - a fall in property prices. Some of the recent gloomy headlines make me suspect that all the journalists in the country have sold up and are doing everything in their power to cause a property house price crash so that they can buy at rock bottom.

Window on green thinking

We spend all our time off in Devon. Whenever possible we take the train, but we do keep a second car down there for getting around. It has clocked up 237,000 miles. So, surely this must make it a very, very green car?

I am fascinated by embedded energy - in layman's English, the amount of energy needed to make a product - and how little time is given to this topic when green issues are debated. I would not for a second award myself any eco-credentials - a girl with as many pairs of shoes as I have would be turned away at the gates of green heaven - but I would like to see hard evidence that the second pane of glass in a double-glazing unit preserves more energy than is used in its manufacture. And how exactly can uPVC window frames, installed to retain heat, be better for the environment than wooden ones?

For that matter, your property gets far more points on an Energy Performance Certificate for a new energy-efficient boiler than for one lovingly nurtured past its tenth birthday. Shouldn't we be encouraged to prolong the life of every appliance? And perhaps I'm completely missing the point, but how can taxing older cars off the road be green? Surely “make do and mend” must be at the heart of any green initiative?

Agents of our destruction

That estate agents are losing their jobs is gleefully viewed by many people as the silver lining in the cloud of doom that hangs over Britain. But remember this: - we are all slaving down the mine and estate agents are the canaries.

If estate agencies are shutting up shop it is not because house prices are dropping - their fees don't suffer that much if our homes drop in value.

They are closing down because so few of us are actually moving. And when we stop moving, we stop buying things.

We don't buy toasters, fridges and washing machines, we don't buy beds and new bathroom suites. And nor do we employ the services of removal men or decorators. So much of the economy is oiled by a vigorous property market.

The housing malaise goes far deeper than that. So many of the milestones in our lives depend on our progress up and down the property ladder. If a young couple can't get their first step on the ladder and buy an apartment together, they will put off getting married. And, if another couple can't trade up from their flat to a house, they will put off the business of procreation.

So no good news for the wedding industry or purveyors of cuddly toys. It's even a kick in the well-padded backsides of divorce lawyers - I know of at least two couples who cannot get divorced as they cannot sell up. On and on, the ramifications of a stagnant housing market go.

I'm hard pushed to think of anyone who can afford to sit back and snigger at the prospect of a dole queue full of estate agents. Well, there is one exception - funeral directors. Death, at least, is recession-proof.

Kirstie Allsopp is the presenter of Location, Location, Location on Channel 4

timesonline.co.uk/property

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