Overview: Want to join a guerrilla war?

Sitting around complaining about the plight of first-time buyers is not Charlie Luxton's style. But he and others in their twenties and thirties are fed up with not being able to afford a property of their own. London is a special problem, they know, but surely after all their education and training it shouldn't be necessary to cripple themselves with debt to buy something modest?

Not to put too fine a point on it, they are angry - not just for themselves but for everyone who is caught up in what Luxton calls the "fetishisation" of houses, by which he means that property is regarded as an asset and object for display rather than a home, and all the complicated, restrictive planning laws that make everything else a bureacratic nightmare.

So Luxton, 29, who is an architect by training and a presenter of architectural television shows, has joined with friends to make a series for the BBC called Guerrilla Homes, which he hopes will empower those in the same boat to make an assault on planning laws - all quite legally, of course.

"I want to use the appetite for design and makeovers to create a serious debate. It's about time we took a radical approach," says Luxton, who has spotted some useful loopholes and wants to find young buyers happy to be guided along these routes for the show.

First in the line of fire is the infamous "architectural merit" clause that is a condition of building a large house in countryside. "Why shouldn't couples decide to live together as a family and have a share in a new house?" He is not necessarily hopeful of a favourable answer, but wants at least to shake things up a bit.

And Luxton's plans for the countryside don't stop there. He has all sorts of strategies for mobile homes, which might involve buying a large field and shuffling homes around to meet the laws regarding temporary occupation. "Nothing like the disaster of cramming caravans into fields by the seaside," he adds reassuringly. Woodland is even better. "We could buy 50 acres and put down railway track for moving the homes." Luxton is adamant that this vision is environmentally sensitive.

Another target is the outdated distinction between town and country embraced by planning law. "It is no longer 'dirty versus clean'. Biodiversity in towns is rising, while the countryside can be polluted."

But towns don't get off lightly. He would love to see people raising their eyes to the rooftops with a view to exploiting wasted loft space - a sort of human version of the nesting instinct.

And if parents can no longer help with the increasingly hefty deposits needed by their offspring when buying, they may have a useful spot at the bottom of their gardens. "There is a common misconception that you need planning permission for everything. That is not the case," says Luxton. The budget he has in mind is £80,000 - even less outside the South-east.

If you wish to take part in Charlie Luxton's new series, www.guerrillahomes.com launches in October