Just one day before Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on the General Election race, Labour's Angela Rayner wheeled out the party's plans for ‘new towns' as a crucial part of the answer to the UK's housing crisis.

There are, of course, plenty of issues that councils are looking at the next government to provide answers to, adequate funding for the sector and social care reform obviously among them, but housing has rapidly raced up the list to join other pressing concerns.