Labour would give councils new powers to build homes in the West Midlands - after it emerged more people in their twenties and thirties are being forced to continue living with their parents.
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, announced plans to let local authorities designate areas as “housing growth areas” where developers are allowed to build.
Central government will also place an obligation on councils to draw up housing plans, to ensure there are enough homes to meet the needs of the local community.
And first time buyers will have priority once the new homes go on sale.
Labour also highlighted new figures showing 45% of young people aged 20 to 34 in the West Midlands, almost half, could be living with their parents within a generation if more homes are not made available.
According to House of Commons Library figures, 29% of young adults aged 20-34 years were living with their parents in the region in 2012.
And this this is projected to rise to 35% by 2025, on current trends, and 45% by 2040.
Mr Miliband commissioned Sir Michael Lyons, former Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council, to draw up plans to tackle the housing problem.
Unveiling Sir Michael’s findings, he said a Labour government would local authorities the power to reserve a proportion of homes built in ‘Housing Growth Areas’ first-time buyers in the area, who would have priority access for a period of two months.
In addition, local authorities will be able to restrict the sale of homes in these areas so they cannot be sold for buy-to-let or buy-to-leave empty properties.
The Labour leader said: “There has been a systematic failure to build the homes our country needs.
“Too much development land is held as a speculative investment when local people need homes.
“Too often the trickle of new developments that get completed are snapped up before people from the area can benefit, undermining support for much needed further development. And, for too many young families, the dream of home ownership is fading fast.”
Sir Michael said: “We face the biggest housing crisis in a generation. We simply have to do better as a nation, not only because our children and grandchildren need the homes we should be providing now, but because greater house building will make a direct contribution to national economic growth.
“My report sets out a comprehensive plan to tackle the key problems that underpin our failure to build enough homes.”
Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds, MP for Wolverhampton North East, said: “The Lyons report is the first serious plan in a generation for building homes at the scale and speed our nation needs: a comprehensive roadmap to tackle the deep and underlying causes of a housing crisis which threatens the prosperity of our country and the future of our young people.”
A separate report by the National Housing Federation warned that the West Midlands faces a “broken housing market” with some areas desperate for regeneration alongside places where house prices are out of reach of ordinary people.
The report, West Midlands Broken Market, Broken Dreams, said that despite average house prices in the West Midlands being below the national average at £177,880, they are more than seven times the average salary in the region.
The average salary in the West Midlands of £24,180 doesn’t come close to the £40,658 required for an average mortgage in the region, pricing thousands of hard-working families out of home ownership, the National Housing Federation said.
