The day we recorded this was Stephanie’s last day on staff at the New Statesman, so that meant it’s my last opportunity to do something I’ve been threatening for a while: to explain to her exactly why Britain has a housing crisis.

To help explain that one, we’re joined by Catharine Banks, of the policy team at housing charity Shelter. She talks us through the reasons for the shocking fact that we don’t know who owns nearly a fifth of the land in England & Wales. (You can read more on that here.)

And finally, inevitably, you lot tell us your housing horror stories. Warning: involves slugs and kettles.

A brief primer on my obsession with London’s planning policies:

  • My seminal work, 10 things which prove London’s green belt is a terrible idea;
  • Some facts and figures on quite how little land there is to build on in London, courtesy of Quod;
  • My take on the housing white paper, which won’t do anything much:

And lastly, here’s that bloody potato farm:

Annotated extract from Google’s map of the Ilford-Romford area of east London. 

The episode itself is below. You can subscribe to the podcast on Acast, iTunes, or RSS. Enjoy.

Jonn Elledge is the editor of CityMetric. He is on Twitter as @jonnelledge and also has a Facebook page now for some reason. 

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