Soaring house prices through the late 1990s and early 21st century priced millions out of the housing market, particularly in a popular second home and retirement area like the South West.

Now the credit crunch, rising joblessness and recession have made things even more difficult for those seeking a home, even though prices are falling. All the signs are that things will get worse and local councils simply don't have the housing stock to cope.

But the knee-jerk reaction to build hundreds of thousands of cheap houses in often inappropriate locations must be resisted.

One of the few reasons Margaret Thatcher's council house sell-offs were a success in the 1980s was because private ownership put pride back into many run-down estates. We cannot and must not recreate the problems of those estates and build bad housing when we know the difficulties such developments cause, both for the residents who have to live in them and the communities where they are put.

Instead the solution is to put social housing, of the highest possible quality, into towns and villages, rather along the lines of the Poundbury experiment carried out by Prince Charles' Duchy of Cornwall, in Dorset. There, housing of various types, large and small, rented and privately owned, has been developed together in the same way that communities naturally grow over time. The result is a good social mix and high-quality homes in a pleasant environment.

We should have been building just such housing over the past several decades, allowing councils to use council house receipts and other funds to invest in new building - and doing so with an eye on both the quality of the building, the needs of the community and the likely demand.

That we have not is due, in the main, to national Government policies which have consistently removed real powers from local government while adding to their responsibilities and forcing them to become ever more greedy tax collectors. That has got to stop. Allowing local authorities the freedom to build social housing to meet local needs, in line with what communities want, is now the priority.

Weather eye

IS THERE a phrase that better sums up our current obsession with over-bearing 'elf and safety than the warning "not to go out unless your journey is absolutely necessary"?

We have been hearing it on radio and TV almost on the quarter-hour over the past couple of days as snow and ice has brought the nation slithering to a halt. Broadcasters have been quoting police, driving organisations and local authorities ad nauseam, imploring us all to stay indoors.

The reason? A heavy fall of snow which, while it forced the closure of some schools and roads has not - here in the South West at least - had anything like the paralysing effect you would imagine from listening to all those warnings.

Like the boy who cried wolf, the rash of weather warnings and safety advice we now receive on an almost daily basis ceases to have anything like the impact that is intended. A majority of people made it to work yesterday across our region, despite being implored to stay at home; more, no doubt, could have done so if they had not been persuaded otherwise or given the ideal excuse for a "duvet day".

Of course, no-one should take risks with their own or others' personal safety and snow and ice make for hazardous driving. But adults can make decisions for themselves and ought to be free to assess the relative risk of their journey without the constant finger-wagging from authority.

We need information about weather, the conditions on the road and the likely forecast. Advice on safe driving and on packing a pair of boots, a shovel and a flask of hot tea don't go amiss either. But we can't all stay at home - and most of us don't need to.

Unless there is a national emergency, directives to stay indoors are inappropriate. Don't travel? We'll be the judge of that, thanks very much.

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