It would seem that this house building programme will coincide with the Olympic construction programme. Does anyone know where you find a builder, plumber, carpenter etc etc NOW? Add in the work now needed in the flooded counties and you realise that this government really does live on another planet. Yet another great Labour initiative unlikely to reach fulfilment.

Richard, Newcastle,

The £8 billion is simply to subsidise the house building and is reported to be inadequate. The extra £300 million for infrastructure would build a single bypass, for example, around Harlow.
We need to invest seriously if we want sustainable communities.
We have a choice of building hundreds of thousands of homes on the cheap and building problems for future generations or tackling the structural problems of housing demand and infrastructure.
Who wants a house without a decent transport system, a hospital, schools, colleges, doctors surgery, dentist, shops and some green space.
But are we the taxpayers prepared to pay the price for a growing population (caused by us living longer) and lower occupancy rates (caused by family breakdown)?
We will pay in taxes now or social breakdown in the future unless we choose to change direction.

Nigel Clark, Hunsdon, Herts,

Fudging the market is only going to prolong the housing boom. Brown is showing is corporate socialist credentials. This is a policy of the 70s not one for 2007. Exactly who is going to pay to subsidise housing for 'key workers' ? And those who are caught in the low income trap and are not key workers, how is this fair to them. Let the market correct itself, pay 'key workers' the wages they need to afford housing and don't subsidise. Oops, the unions have vetoed that haven't they. We can't introduce regional pay bargaining!

Neil, London, UK

What low cost housing? All the new buid developments in my area have been massively more expensive than any existing properties... New build does not equal cheaper

Oh, and these eco-houses are gonna be £40,000 more expensive on top of that too

Jack, london,

To reduce fossil fuel usage, all new buildings - and especially homes - should be required under planning law to include roof solar panels. The extra cost would be proportionally small and the saving in running cost would be significant.

John Claxton, Portishead, UK

Nice to know that public money isn't being spent on such things as flood defences then...

Pete Balchin, Bristol, uk

This will push up prices for first time buyers by 17.5% - well done Gordon Brown - own goal again!

Peter, London,

This is clearly more about shifting ownership of houses back to government. If Gordon Brown wanted to improve affordability, he should promote the building of more market price houses, not continue to reduce supply by taking half the houses away from developers for "social housing" in return for planning gain. This reduction in supply of market price houses necessarily pushes prices up by not fulfilling demand.

Using government owned land for developments will no doubt raise a lot of money by selling to developers, with the condition that say half the houses will be "social houses". These will probably be the ONLY pieces of land available to develop on if Planning Gain Supplement does come in, which in any event is really an indirect tax on the house buyer. Personally, I think Brown is using PGS as a tool to persuade developers to build now, before PGS does come in, which perhaps will never happen

Phillip Lucas, Warlingham, Surrey

Jill,
British Land shares down 2.8% today!!
Where is this bonanza you are talking about??

Jeremy Bush, Camden,

Why don'y we build a "palm island" or a "world island" off the coast like they have done off the coast of Dubai.
Places like Blackpool and Filey could be revitalised by such a development which could be allowed subject to "affordable housing" being built on 1/2 the plots.
Land off the Thames estuary would also be idea. The Islands and development can actually increase plant and animal diversity - and could be incorporated with wind farm energy and the like.
We would then not have to build on greenbelt lands.
The Dutch have been reclaiming land from the sea for years.

Richard Garland, Whitefield, Manchester

Why is no one in government talking about what the sustainable population of the UK is? We wouldn't be having this discussion about a lack of housing if the government hadn't allowed millions of immigrants to come into the country over the last ten years... a policy that did not appear in their manifesto and for which they have never received a democratic mandate.

It is clear that it not sustainable to have an ever increasing population... our transport system is creaking at the seams, our public services are struggling to cope with the demands placed upon them and society is becoming increasingly fragmented... politicians may like to talk about common British values that we all hold, but it is a myth.

Andrew Brown, Derby , UK

Its good news, but please let them look like homes and not like boxes, hopefully these homes will have some verandas and or even a small garden. Will the costs remain as quoted or will this again exceed its time scale and budget. Maybe its time to be stricter on imigration, because if there is already a shortage of housing how can the UK keep on growing in numbers.

Mark Harris, Swansea, Wales

Last time they were asked the government said that they had no figure in mind for the optimium population for the country when deciding on immigration quotas.

Perhaps they should make their minds up before most of us are living under water.

Brian Gilbert, Hampton, Middx