The UK needs both more and better housing as its population increases, its households become smaller and its people grow richer. Unfortunately, its planning system is perfectly designed to prevent this. That was the chief argument of my column of September 22 (“A conspiracy that raises house prices”). As a result, British housing is expensive, cramped and old, as two outstanding new pamphlets from Policy Exchange point out.*

So what is to be done? The core of any answer has to be changes in incentives. This was the point I made, in some detail, last year (“Grounds for a new way to look at land use”, 14 May 14, 2004; “Fields look good, but home is best”, 30 April April 30, 2004; and “Why on earth not put a tax on land?”, February 20, 2004).