Imagine a country where everyone could live securely in a decent home, one with room enough for your ordinary needs, that would also be a haven for your dreams and an expression of who you are. Which offers peace and privacy yet is part of a neighbourhood, with access to transport, schools, health, contact with nature, places of work, shops, sport and entertainment. Where you can move easily to another home as your life changes – if you start a family, you become single, you grow old, you move jobs.
A country that meets such simple needs should, as I argue in my book Property, surely, be the ultimate goal of policies about homes. Britain is not currently this place. And, despite the Labour government’s welcome attention to addressing these issues, its plans are unlikely to make a significant impact any time soon.
