So what should young people do? Campaign on a few simple premises:
1. House building should always be tied to population growth. Simple.
Immigration/birth rate increases are not a inherent problem, as long as the house building matches the rises. If the goverment don't want to build more houses, slow down the rate of population growth.
2. Massively reduce the red-tape around planning permission.
Right now its very difficult to build your own home in much of the country, especially rural areas. Why? Because many rural councils have decided that enough is enough - now we have enough houses in our countryside, and any more will ruin it.
Oh, but we want more people, we want more migrants and more young people to drive the economy, that pays our pensions.. but we don't want you to build houses in our countryside! Just a quick look at the planning permission, and a look at existing houses, and in any rural town in the UK, you will see dozens of houses that people live in, but would not be allowed to be built today. In rural britain, older genertaions built lovely houses in rural places, then turned to their kids and said 'no.. you can't do what we did, we have enough hosues now'.
3. The right to live on your land
Simple principle that would help many in rural Britain: Everyone has a right to build a property on land that they own, if they adhere to the following principles:
1. They must intend to live in the property for at least 5 years. (with tolerance for extreme changes in circumstances)
2. They must source all building material and labor from within a 50 mile radius
3. The house cannot be rented for the first 10 years
What would you get? The ability for honest local people to build houses and live in their community. They would also be forced to source both labour and materials locally, meaning that properties remain in keeping with local styles, and help boost local industry. Property developers are locked out, as they cannot rent or resell the property imidiatly.
4. Restrict foreign corporations and individuals from purchasing UK property. (not ban, but heavily restrict).
The previous two were all about rural britian, but this is one for the cities. A massive restriction on foreign investment would immediately start to lower house prices in London and other major cities.
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So we have a ramped up building program that matches population growth, the right to build helping rural communities, and decreased foriegn involvement, helping urban comunities.
Its a shame it will never happen.