It is well known that we in Britain don't have enough homes for all those who want one. Indeed I am not sure that in my life time we ever have had.

Demand just keeps on exceeding supply.

In part this is down to demographics - people getting married later, increasing divorce and immigration, for example.

But are we building the right houses?

We failed through the 1960s and 1970s, constructing horrible tower blocks and ghastly uniform housing estates which nobody wanted to live in.

It proved a breeding ground for anti-social behaviour and in many cases construction standards were so poor there has been little alternative but to pull the things down just thirty years or so on.

Propertyfinder.com thinks that today we are making a different kind of mistake.

It cites an annual shortage of 350,000 medium-sized homes on the market, with, as a consequence, a quarter of buyers forced to purchase a smaller home than they are looking for.

Availability, not affordability, explains the shortfall, it says.

It states: "Developers make matters worse and continue to build smaller apartments. Government policy forces high density development - and that means small homes that househunters don't want

"There is an annual surplus of 317,000 small homes and 33,000 large homes on the market. That implies overall UK oversupply of 4.3 million two-bedroom homes and an overall UK shortage of four million three-bedroom homes.

"The UK is simply not providing the homes people want.

"The results show a startling mismatch between the homes that exist and the homes that people actually want to live in."

And it is scathing of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and his crusade for millions of new homes on the cheap.

It says: "The Government must share the blame for the oversupply of two bedroom homes as planning requirements force a minimum number of homes to be built on a given site. That means homes that are simply too small for the average househunter. Mr Prescott's £60,000 home scheme is only going to add to the problem."

According to Propertyfinder.com, most people actually want family homes, but the position is far more complex than that.

" Although in absolute numbers, couples and families dominate all the categories, in relative terms, homes of different sizes are favoured much more strongly by distinct groups of people.

"Smaller homes are naturally most favoured by those currently living with parents or in shared rented accommodation as they seek to get a foot on the housing ladder. Single parent families are most likely to be looking for a three-bed home, while families with two parents are after a four-bedroom home. Older couples, who are more established and who had one or more parent living with them, wanted five-bedrooms or more to accommodate the extended family."

So it seems that the Government has once again got housing policy wrong, but private developers are not doing much better either.