You're right, Teribus, he did say "homes" and not "houses". Neverthless, only 28% of those homes are going to be "affordable" - which was the main point of my last posting (but you knew that, didn't you?).

As for: "I don't think for one second anybody would build a house if they knew they would not be able to sell it. The demand is there, that is the market."

I thought that the whole point of capitalism is that you keep on producing things until the market becomes saturated? This has certainly happened here in S. Manchester - where developers have built flats on every available scrap of land - and now the demand has evaporated and they can't sell them (I had to smile, the other day, when I observed a notice on the boundary fence of a largely empty block of new flats instructing estate agents not to erect 'for sale' signs - presumably too many of those makes it look like there's something wrong with the flats).
In other words capitalistic property development is just another form of gambling and the thought of such important things as housing and the environment being subject to the whims and hunches of a load of sleazy gamblers makes me very uneasy.