Unleash the builders

BRITAIN’S housing market is bubbling over. Over the past five years residential property prices have risen by 30%, making the average homeowner feel around £65,000 ($100,000) better off. The frothy prices are in part down to a lack of supply relative to growing demand. Population growth has sped up since the 1980s, and there are more single-person households, but house construction has not kept up (see chart at foot of story). Housebuilding has been far slower than that recommended by Kate Barker, an economist, in an official review of housing in 2004.

On July 10th George Osborne, the chancellor, announced a plan that he hopes will get Britain building again. The proposal has two main strands. One is introducing a new “zonal system” to the planning process. The government has already committed to setting up a statutory register of brownfield land suitable for housing in England. It now promises to go further by legislating to grant automatic planning permission on those sites.