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The problem is the highly localised demand for housing.
Well, that's one of the problems, but not the problem. All the others I've mentioned ...
hundreds of thousands are empty, either for 'buy to leave', because they're in areas where the economy has been eviscerated by decades of rubbish economic policy, because their owners can't afford to renovate them, or because people are sitting on them as second or third 'homes'. Then there are many buildings at risk whose owners have deliberately run them down because they don't care about their conservation value and want to knock them down to build some crap that pays them rent
... contribute, too. All the 'Government' is doing is to kowtow to the endless demands of developers 'to cut red tape', i.e. dismantle further what little remains of sensible planning regulations, which is, indeed, a total nonsense.
The upshot of what they're destroying of the few remaining safeguards will be luxury houses that very few can afford, rubbish housing built in the wrong areas, and a further encouraging of foreign investment in housing.
Their proposed re-classification system of land is such absolute nonsense that 'absolute' is too weak a term. Local authorities should simply designate all their land as 'protect' and tell the Government to go away (but I expect that there will be a presumption against that).
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Oliver Schick
I don't think it's nonsense, but it's highly South East specific, and in particular London. If you want to buy a house in the many parts of the country, no problem. They're cheap as chips. The problem is that everyone there (well, nearly) is on the minimum wage or benefits. The places where the jobs are, particularly the well-paying jobs, are highly centralized and as a result the house prices in those particular locations are astro-fucking-nomical, with commuter belts extending up to 100 miles outwards.
I agree the problem isn't a lack of housing per se. The problem is the highly localised demand for housing. And in these Covid19 times, with remote working becoming the norm, this is the ideal time to try and reverse that. Trouble is, all the Daily Mail-reading Boomers will be up in arms if it turns out their family home that they bought for two-and-a-half shillings in the mid seventies is no longer worth a couple of mill...