Communities to be offered cash incentives to accept new homes

Local neighbourhoods could win control of infrastructure budgets worth up to £300,000 in return for allowing homes to be built, the planning minister will suggest on Thursday as he warns that there is "no painless way to make homes affordable for working people earning ordinary wages".

Unless the country changes course, Margaret Thatcher's dream of a property-owning democracy will shrivel and "home ownership will revert to what it was in the 19th century: a privilege the exclusive preserve of people with large incomes or wealthy parents", Nick Boles will say.

The warning comes as he suggests Britain needs to build 270,000 homes a year, around double the number built each year between 2000 and 2010.