It’s no good getting onto the housing ladder only to be stuck in a small flat

situation is different from when my grandparents bought a flat when they were young, moving into larger homes as they started a family before finally downsizing. People today are likely to start their home-owning journey later, and be more financially stretched when they do so. Middle-aged people with mortgages are also less likely to move than they used to.

Some are warning that the housing ladder itself is broken, with even the old option of moving to the suburbs for space more difficult than it used to be. Trendy urban planners are desperate to densify suburbia by building – you guessed it – more flats.

Building so many flats relative to mid-sized houses compounds the affordability problem. You can extend a house: build a room in the roof, add a conservatory, even dig a basement. They are flexible to the changing needs of a family, so that there are other options available if you cannot find a different, larger property nearby. Owners of flats have no such options.

There is a tendency to think “job done” once someone is on the property ladder. But what will Britain look like if, instead of largely living in semi-detached homes, we live more and more in flats? Architects will cheer, but young couples with small children who find themselves unable to finance a move into something bigger will despair.

Part of the solution must be making more land available to build enough homes in the places people want to live. But just as urgent is a fundamental reassessment by government and local planners of whether the system is delivering the kind of homes people want. It doesn’t look like it.