THE call for affordable housing is getting louder and louder.

It seems such a terrible shame that young people are struggling to buy their first home when there are thousands of properties sitting empty in Kirklees.

The Liberal Democrat party says there are currently 3,479 empty houses throughout the borough and have come up with proposals that could bring many of them back to life.

They say the council should allocate money under the Government’s New Homes Bonus scheme to help ease the problem.

This fund matches the money the council raises from Council Tax to spend on finding more accommodation for people desperate for houses.

One of the Lib Dem proposals is to set up a loan scheme to help property owners carry out renovations before letting it out to people on the housing list. Another is creating a social letting agency run by the council that would manage and let empty properties for their owners.

It is these kind of innovative ideas that are needed to get more homes available.

How realistic and affordable they are remains to be seen, but far more clearly needs to be done to give people the chance to get on the housing ladder.

With mortgages now so hard to get and property prices remaining at unrealistic levels – as they have been for many years now – the time has come for some radical thinking.

Let’s hope this is that start and that something can be done to provide roofs over the heads of the generations to come.