‘While it’s not the whole answer, meeting targets will be difficult if we continue to constrain supply unduly,’’ Barker, who has advised the Treasury on the issue, told the conference. “On housing supply, the scale of the problem is growing larger.”

House prices in the UK have tripled since 1997 and rose more than 10% last [...]

Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England, argued that surging demand for new homes – Gordon Brown has targeted three million new homes by 2020 – meant that “the sanctity of green belt land should be questioned”. He believes consideration should be given to environmentally friendly development on some of the 4.2m acres of green [...]