Editor's Comment - By Marc Da Silva

In a speech yesterday at an event hosted by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, housing minister Grant Shapps distanced himself from his predecessor John Healy, who said that falling levels of home ownership were "not such a bad thing", when he pledged to get a lot more Brits onto the housing ladder.

Shapps acknowledged the need to "build more homes" in order to make more people's aspiration of homeownership a reality.

But early signs are that the new coalition government, which vows to do "all it can" to help first-time buyers get on the property ladder, will fail.

Despite acknowledging the need to build more new homes, this government is not taking the right steps necessary to increase housing supply, and appears to underestimate the importance of the housing industry and the shortage of homes in this country.

Unlike his Labour predecessor in the post, the housing minister is not invited to attend Cabinet meetings under the new administration, which in itself has undermined the housing minister's position and that of the property sector.

Shapps is now working under new communities secretary Eric Pickles, making him ultimately responsible for planning and development of new build homes. Yet Pickles has just abolished all new homes targets - which seems absurd.

Shapps, who rejects the previous government projections that three million new homes were needed within 15 years, insists that "powerful incentives" planned by the coalition government - namely introducing cash incentives for councils - would succeed in helping encourage the construction of more new build more homes, as opposed to setting targets.

Yet since the new government came into power last month, a number of planned new build homes across the country have already been scrapped or suspended, as a consequence of the government's decision to abolish housebuilder targets.

Last week's major overhaul of the planning law has also placed greater restrictions on where developers are permitted to construct new homes, by redefining what constitutes ‘brownfield' land - reducing land for development in the process. The government should be providing more land for development, not less.

The government has also scrapped minimum density targets which will reduce the volume of much needed smaller and cheaper homes built. This is despite the fact that these properties are important to key workers and the less well off.

In an era of high property prices, the Tory-led government simply does not seem to recognise the key role shared ownership now plays in the housing market.

"The cash for affordability housing has run out", Shapps was reported by the Guradian to have said. If true, the future of shared equity homeownership such as HomeBuy Direct appears to be in the balance.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that Britain's population could hit 70million in 20 years, and unless something radical is done, we are going to struggle to house an extra nine million people.

An increase in the supply-demand imbalance - fewer homes in relation to demand - will force property prices even higher in the medium to long-term, and inevitably make it even harder for people to get a foot on the housing ladder.

It's time to rethink your new housing development strategy, Mr Shapps.