http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19455195

How much do you want to bet that won't be the final total?

And David needs to stop reading the Mail:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19454322

Red tape? Nimbys? That's what's holding the country back from economic growth, is it?

he is right you know, on south today over the last few weeks there has been quite a few reports on desperately needed housing/industry but no not here come the cry from the locals

Depends very much on what gets built. If we're just handing £big bag of money to developers who will then build estates full of £250k houses in suburbia that hardly anyone wants to buy ( or equally high rises in city centers full of £250k flats nobody wants to buy) the it'll do no good at all. If its used to build affordable housing in the right places, the kind of business accommodation start ups and medium sized businesses need to grow into and the infrastructure to support those then it might be useful.

How much confidence do I have in the current lot to do that? None. At. All.

Problem:

• South East - lots of jobs but no houses
• Pretty much the rest of the urban UK - lots of houses but no jobs.

Solution: More houses.

Hang on a minute...

Government imposed red tape...... that I could believe.

Government imposed planning red tape isn't the thing that's stopping businesses from expanding. There are in fact lots of places they could go to do so. There are numerous enterprise parks round just about every major city in Britain with excellent facilities that aren't anywhere near full. What's stopping them is an utter lack of available capital. Which, despite four attempts at George's favourite 'solution' of giving the banks huge wodges of public money, is still as bad as it was two years ago.

Jon