A HOMES crisis that is blighting the lives of young people across the country needs to be urgently addressed by a new Government, a Yorkshire housing boss has said.

Mervyn Jones, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Housing, has spoken out about the need for housing to get back onto the political agenda.

He said that after years of the need to build more homes being ignored as a national issue, as politicians shied away from NIMBYism and increasing demands on the public purse, the problem of unaffordable housing and growing homelessness needed to be tackled.

He said: "I think the mood is starting to change now. The message is starting to get through that unless we build more homes there will be more homelessness, and more young people stuck living parents and so on.

"Across the political spectrum it's definitely becoming an issue. It's on the politicians' radar."

Over recent years he has watched as the numbers of new homes being built has fallen, contributing to a environment where more and more young people are trapped in privately rented homes, or their parents' homes.

National Housing Federation figures show that in York last year 799 new homes were needed but only 230 were actually built creating a shortfall of 569.

In North Yorkshire, the shortfall was 887 and in the East Riding area it was 1,134.

By 2031, there could be a total shortfall in Yorkshire and Humber of 200,000 homes, Mr Jones said.

And York suffers particularly from high rents and house prices with the ratio of incomes to housing costs among the worst in the country, he added.

Yorkshire Housing is part of the Homes for Britain campaign pushing for whichever political party gets into power in May to sit down with industry experts and find ways of building vital new homes across the country.

Later this week councillors in York will discuss the housing crisis in the city with a push from one party for York to campaign for an exemption from Right to Buy laws, and calls for the Local Plan to be finalised with realistic housing targets to make sure the greenbelt is not destroyed huge developments.