[onmydesk]

It is perhaps more accurate to say the prevention of allowing a free market to operate in housing is the problem. Government meddling. What the UK desperately needs is for these artificial props to be removed from the housing market and for the market to operate. This will lead to a correction which at this point actually benefits more people than it harms.

Selling piles of bricks to one another for ever increasing prices is plainly unsustainable and yet it has become the basis for the UK economy.

We need that money to go into entrepreneurial activity the likes of which a startup hub is well placed to encourage.

This story of property investment trumping entrepreneurial activity is a microcosm of the story of the UK economy as a whole since the housing bubble started 10+ years ago.

The UK desperately needs a free market oriented government. Traditionally the conservatives were that party but it appears no longer. They have just continued to damage the UK as the party before them.

It is appalling.

[ses]

I think one of the first things we need to look at is the poor quality of a lot of new housing developments and the number of unoccupied / 'brown-field' that could be renovated and provide much more affordable housing than the over inflated prices of new properties. I still fail to see why the ideology of a more unrestricted free market economy would be of any benefit to the property market. In fact I think fewer restrictions would worsen the situation with many buying new houses that could become effectively worthless where for example they have been built in high flood risk areas.

I agree the economy should be less reliant on the housing bubble, but I'm not convinced that technology / start-ups are the only way to achieve this. The 'start-up' hubs you mention are just as likely to become another black-hole which the government throws money at with no real strategy in place.