With the amount of collective resources and brainpower going into the national housebuilding programme, we shouldn't be faced with a choice between quantity and quality, argues Bob Neill

It is often said beggars can't be choosers. Why then, in the midst of a housing crisis in which, for millions of people, the property ladder can seem an unobtainable pipe dream, is the Government busying itself with the notion of beauty? That is the question I have seen raised countless times this week in response to the housing minister Kit Malthouse's recent drive to ‘build better, build beautiful.' (Viewpoint, 8 November.)