John Prescott&amp;’s Communities Plan certainly received the national media coverage that the government would have wanted, albeit orchestrated by the now compulsory series of leaks. But given the many headlines fanfaring the imminent building of 200,000 new homes in the south east, you would be forgiven for thinking Prescott and his team were actually out on site today digging holes in the ground.<p></p><p> A more considered view is that we are not about to see a massive housebuilding programme at all - the problems are legion. The planning system, for one thing, still stands in the way, as does the threat of flooding and the lack of infrastructure. And there is the small issue of viability - will the private sector want to build thousands of new homes east of London while burdened by planning gain requirements that could be prohibitive?</p><p> But the industry mustn&amp;’t moan. Not long ago the government didn&amp;’t even accept that we had a housing problem - you could forget &amp;“step changes&amp;” and &amp;“tackling serious housing shortages&amp;”, we lived in the time of &amp;“concreting over the countryside&amp;”.</p><p> The mood is now in favour of building, and the industry must embrace that mood. That means convincing the …