Daily Telegraph: "We must build on the green belt to end this housing crisis. Will any politician have the guts?"

Link to web site

" 'London needs a million new homes,' declared the London mayoral candidate known as Prince Zylinkski, who carries a cavalry sword inherited from his father and once challenged Nigel Farage to a duel. 'I'm the only person who can do it. The others are timewasters.'

Mr Zylinski's pitch drew laughs from the audience at this week's BBC mayoral debate. But they also appeared to agree with him. Asked whether any of the candidates promising to build 50,000 homes a year would actually do it, just one person in the audience raised his hand, tentatively.

It is not just London. The whole country is suffering from a chronic shortage of houses. England has been building about 100,000 to 170,000 houses a year for over two decades. Its estimated need is for 250,000 to 300,000 a year – and that’s just to keep prices steady.

Unsurprisingly, prices keep rising. Home ownership peaked more than a decade ago. In much of the south, simply getting planning permission to build houses on a patch of farmland increases its value a thousand-fold. Something is deeply wrong."