CYP Now - Opinion: Young people can build their way out of a housing crisis

Sometimes innovative and important policy ideas come from the most unexpected quarters. The often reactionary planning minister Nick Boles suddenly piped up some weeks ago that plots of state-owned land should be available, via a waiting list running parallel with that for council housing, to young people for them to build houses for themselves.

Boles set out these plans in the same speech where he expressed concerns that the Conservatives were at risk of being viewed by many young people as "aliens from another planet". He argued that a self-build initiative, giving young people the opportunity to get on and help themselves, might be a way of connecting more positively with the young.

It was a complete coincidence that, the same week, I was in Sweden discussing housing, jobs and young people. Housing, I argued, was the weak link of youth policy, despite growing levels of youth homelessness and far too many young people still feeling forced to live at home long after they would have preferred to have moved out.

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