You can get a sense of the housing need from the fact that over the last 30 years of the twentieth century, the number of households increased by 30 per cent, while house building fell by 50 per cent.

The new policy contained in a statement called Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing (PPS3), is meant to overcome the obstacles that clearly exist in the planning system as it currently exists, which mean there are not enough good sites coming through that can give the UK the family homes that are clearly needed.

It's also hoped that a new National Brownfield Strategy - which is also up for consultation - will help local authorities make more brown field land available for development.

The emphasis in PPS3 is on councils ensuring they build the right mix of homes to meet local needs and in particular to ensure there are enough family homes. The fact that house prices have accelerated ahead of prices for flats in recent years clearly shows that the biggest unmet demand is for houses. You can also see this unmet demand if you look at rents too. Lender, Paragon's figures show rental yields on houses are 6.3 per cent, comfortably above that 5.5 per cent of flats.

Environment Friendly Family Homes with Gardens

From now on when looking at new developments, developers and planners will have to take account of the need to cut carbon emissions as well as wider environmental and sustainability considerations when siting and designing new homes.

And right on cue, to help this process along, Gordon's Brown popped an announcement in the Pre Budget Review on December 6th that stamp duty for new zero carbon homes will be set at nil.

The forthcoming Planning Policy Statement on climate change and the new Code for Sustainable Homes is also expected to set out further details including more plans to move towards zero carbon development.

Is this a Big Change?

But as with so much from the government a lot is left to interpretation. Within PPS3, there is talk of a need for a "flexible response", which at least one commentator has said could amount to an order to build on green land.

However, the National Estate Agents Association was optimistic. They said "With the new PPS3 reforms, which seem to promote the provision of more family homes, hopefully we will see the balance (of lack of family housing) redressed. "But, even if we do start to see more family friendly homes and fewer flats, it will take ages for the housing mix to be altered significantly, so the best advice is probably to keep investing in houses because that is where the best growth will be for a while yet.

We are All Hobbits Now (If Builders are to be believed)

Now, most landlords know that if there is one thing that tenants value it is space. Another thing they know is that two-bedroom properties where the second bedroom is also of a reasonable size can let well - they are more flexible because they can be let easily to a single person who can use the other bedroom as an office, to a couple, to a family with one child or to two unrelated sharers. However, if the second bedroom is too small, the chance of letting to unrelated sharers is much less.