Call for 200,000 new homes

HOUSING

The Government should undertake to build 200,000 new homes a year on some of Britain's most derelict land, according to the Royal Institute of British Architects. In a report highly critical of the main political parties, the institute asserts that housing problems are being ignored.

It argues that the next government must develop a unified housing policy, by increasing investment, to end housing ghettos.

The RIBA president, Owen Luder, said: "Housing has all but dropped off the political agenda. Government should view spending on housing as an investment. We need to give incentives to the private sector to provide imaginative housing solutions."