What a flurry of recent housing announcements. We have the long-promised Renters Reform Bill with its promise to ban no fault evictions, introduce a new ombudsman and bring the private rented sector into the Decent Homes Standard.

We’ve had Homes England now saying it wants to prioritise regeneration and wants us all to think of it as the Homes and Regeneration Agency.

And Sir Keir Starmer has called for a new era of housebuilding with new homes to be built on the green belt where it ‘does not affect the beauty of our countryside’.

Considering that a lot of supposedly green belt land is in fact derelict waste ground, petrol stations, unused car parks and informal rubbish tips, there are many places where building new homes would be a considerable improvement to the beauty of our places.