This "charity" that has dreamed up this idea about us and our family homes!

I totally agree, FlicketyB .

But, where to put the extra homes is another bone of contention.

It would be good if more large companies could be persuaded to move away from the saturated south-east. But that won't happen. People like living down south.

We have all got to grit our teeth and agree that new homes need to be built near us. There will always be developments that are inappropriate but we need to accept that more houses are needed in our back yard.

I have lived in an large Oxfordshire village for 15 years. There are over 600 houses in the village but in the last 15 years less than 40 new houses have been built. Nearly all these arose from windfall sites, sites that became available unexpectedly with each site adding only a handful of homes to the village. My village could absorb another 100 houses with very little difficulty, we have the infrastructure, schools, shops, transport and we are within a mile of a major dual carriageway.

To me localisation would being told we needed to have new houses in the village but control over what land they should be built on, and, my hobby horse, should have some say in their appearance. A local village has had a development built on its outskirts that, built in the nearby town would look attractive, but the urban style of these properties looks awful in a rural situation.

Perhaps the housing answer might lie in how we work. The more people can work from home, the less crowded metropolitan areas can become, as you can live anywhere.

My last job was just that - I did translations, whereby I received the text online and forwarded the translation online, getting paid directly into my bank account, which I could check online. It works the same for proofreading, which I've also done. I also gossip online.

The other thing could be to make it easier to commute. More fast trains with large secure car parks at stations has been the solution here where I live in SEQeensland. My suburb has seen the railway car park increase tenfold, and the number of trains increase by half, since 1993, as city workers park and ride. Train travel is relatively affordable here, and certainly cheaper than city parking.(Hasn't been privatised)