Telford 'should be model for housebuilding'
Telford is the ideal model for Britain as it looks to tackle the housing shortage, according to the Labour Party.
Entire new towns need to be built in order to tackle the shortage of housing, with 200,000 homes a year.
Labour's shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds wants to see a future government replicate the creation of areas like Telford to ease the pressure on towns and cities with growing populations.
The MP for Wolverhampton North East said the party needed to treat the housing shortage as a "war job" and repeat the work of Clement Attlee's government in the late 1940s to create thousands of homes a year.
The party has also drafted in Sir Michael Lyons, a former chairman of the BBC, to chair a commission to look at how to meet the target of 200,000 homes a year between 2015 and 2020.
Miss Reynolds said: "Telford was built to meet growing housing need. Telford shows that new towns with strong transport links succeed.
"In the West Midlands there is more brownfield land lying vacant than in almost any other part of the country, particularly on former industrial sites, that can be converted for housing need.
"This government is presiding over the lowest level of house building in peacetime since the 1920s and we are building less than half the number of houses that we need to keep up with demand every year.
"A Labour government will aim to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020.
"It is about building homes and communities. Because we must ensure that our aims and ambitions match the hopes and dreams of all those who want a home of their own."
She said the commission would launch next month.
