The need to build more affordable, high-quality homes is one of the biggest issues facing our country.

Affordability is an issue for everyone, especially first-time buyers and renters and for older people downsizing to a smaller property.

Having an affordable, high-quality home, whether it's owned or rented, gives people a stake in their community and contribute towards stable family relationships.

Unaffordable homes undermine the fabric of a democratic society and create intergenerational inequality. All homes should be affordable.

It's right to have an ambitious target of 40 per cent of new homes being built being deemed 'affordable'.

However, the technical definition of 'affordability' - a price equivalent to at least 20 per cent below local market value for homebuyers or at least 20 per cent below local market rents for renters - still leaves many people struggling to afford a new home to buy or rent.

The problem is compounded when house prices continue to rise; in the year to June 2021 they rose 13 per cent.

In the 12 months ended March 2021 841 new homes were built across Warwick district, making an annual average of 1,004 new homes in the past two years, an increase of 6 per cent compared to an annual average of 948 in the previous four years.

In 2020/21 the percentage of new homes actually built which were deemed 'affordable' was 27 per cent, and since 2019 the average is 35 per cent.

This is an increase from an average of 31 per cent in the previous four years.

In 2020/21, planning permission was granted for 354 affordable dwellings, which equates to 36.3 per cent of the 974 new dwellings granted permission.

The 12 months ended March 2021 was a year dominated by Covid-19 and Brexit.

As was warned at the time, the latter caused a reduction of foreign construction workers, a shortage of delivery drivers and problems with supply of raw materials.

As a result, it seems that property developers prioritised the building of more expensive homes.

Warwick District Council is right to continue to focus attention on achieving its targets both for the total number of new homes for which permission is given and are actually built and for the percentage that are 'affordable'.

The decision by the council to create a new property company, Milverton Homes, will also help achieve the objective of building more affordable, good quality new homes through its joint venture with Vistry Group.

However, more central government action is needed to help make homes more affordable.

The government's proposed planning reforms are not the solution to our housing crisis.

They hand over power to big property developers, some of whom are donors to the Conservative party, and ignore the needs of local communities.

This will not create the affordable homes that both the current and the next generation need.

The proposed reform of the antiquated feudal leasehold property market is a long overdue, if limited, step in the right direction. It would be so much better if the ground rent change applied to existing properties as well as to new ones.

We need to put local authorities at the heart of new home building.

This includes reforming the Land Compensation Act which would allow local authorities to buy undeveloped 'landbanked' land from big developers at its current value instead of its higher predicted future or hope value.'

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