Handsome Jack wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" posted
In article ,
Handsome Jack wrote:
I doubt if anybody has said it is *solely* due to immigration, just that
that is one of the main causes. Personally I don't see how you can let
the population increase by several millions without creating a shortage
of dwellings, unless you build far more than we have done. Is that
really a lie?

We seems happy enough to build new transport services to cope with the
demand from an increased population. Why should housing etc be any
different?

That argument can be made, but it presupposes that immigration is indeed
one of the causes of the housing shortage, rather than this being a
"lie" as Roger said.

In the context, the lie was about the relative lack of social housing.
Combined with the prevention of further council house building the right
to buy transferred property from social housing to the unregulated
private rental sector. In most parts of the country it meant that young
families had to pay three times as much rent with no security of tenure,
and you had to have social problems to get social housing. That is a
separate issue to the overall lack of housing. (Whether immigration
caused a lack of housing, or ameliorated it by increasing economic
growth and financing house building is a separate issue again.)

--

Roger Hayter