Three suggestions to solve the housing shortage

The MoD is sitting on redundant military bases ripe for house building

new houses

When the government announced its intention to simplify and relax the planning system, it knew it was courting trouble. Rural groups and the heritage lobby have been quick to claim that the countryside has been put up for grabs, to quote the National Trust, or at any rate that the proposals would mean more building in places where it is not welcome. The latter, at least, must be true – otherwise there would be no point in the proposals.

But the government's riposte that more homes are needed, and that the places where they are needed most are often those which resist them most fiercely, is also true. With the population booming and house building at its lowest level since the 1920's, this, too, could hardly be otherwise.

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was a government special adviser in the Employment Department and the Northern Ireland Office during the 1980s. In the 1990s he was chief leader writer of The Daily Telegraph, and has contributed to The Times, Independent and Spectator. He is currently the deputy chairman of Policy Exchange, the leading centre right think tank, and also a consultant director of Politeia. In 2009 he published The Power of Numbers, Why Europe Needs To Get Younger, a survey of global demographic trends.