Amount of homes needed ''rises''

The estimates for new homes needed in the UK has risen with the number of extra households needed each year expected to rise to 220,000, according to a new report.

Shelter, a charity for the homeless, has looked at the government''s figures and found that between 2004 and 2006 the annual rate of household growth in England will be 223,000 which will worsen the UK''s housing crisis.

Prices are also expected to rise because there will be more people wanting property than there are homes available.

Last year about 160,000 homes were built in England but this leaves a shortfall of 60,000 according to Shelter.

Graeme Brown, the director of the charity, said: "Some will always scaremonger by claiming that building more homes means concreting over the countryside - but according to the government''s own research, even the most extreme building scenario in the south-east would take up less than one per cent of the total land area."

One of the factors in the problem is the increasing number of people who choose to live alone.


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