It's been a chequered hundred years for council house-building. The promise of safe, secure homes on a grand scale, heralded by the Addison Act in 1919, looks like something of a false start.

A centenary on, we have over 2000 families in Temporary Accommodation in Brent (North West London) and waiting twenty years is not uncommon. Hundreds of thousands of people are barely managing in expensive, insecure and poor quality private rentals.