Not a good idea to get me started on travellers if you are anywhere to the right of Tony Benn...

oh do say more!

As for the 4m without houses - I may be a little to the right of Thatcher here...  If someone can't live with relations who have more than enough space that is their problem. There is no need to allocate housing to them. We are a country with a hell of a lot of empty houses - lots of them publicly owned (not least by the military); which are not deemed 'unfit for habitation' - this is often due to the fact that they have not been lived in for a while and have problems with damp as a result! - Brilliant! Tear them down (if they are that bad!) and replace them, or sell them off to people who are prepared to renovate them, and use the money to rebuild elsewhere.

nice one!  i agree with the points of empty properties and even living with friends and family unfortunately it was Thatcher who suggested we should all become owner occupiers which means we get to choose the folks that live with us ... there certainly is housing stock that would be suitable but all too often what has happened is that large enough houses have been seperated down into smaller units sold and rented making the absorption of vulnerable loved ones less and less a financially viable let alone a practical option....  it is interesting to see how some immigrants have done the shared renting thing with several unrelated folks sharing bedrooms at times 4 or more sharing one room
Yes, we do need more houses that are habitable, but do we need more houses 'per se'? - and we also need to make better use of the housing we already have in use - including being prepared to share a roof.or repair a roof even ... another cuase of damp