<p>A potentially explosive story is emerging, spelt out in the government\'s latest housebuilding and land use statistics, which indicates that housebuilding output is sliding backwards as government policies appear to be undermining the 200,000 annual new homes target it is desperate to realise. The figures have been highlighted by John Stewart, the HBF\'s economic affairs director, who predicts that this may be the \"next big thing\" for the housebuilding lobby since he revealed that housebuilding was at its lowest peacetime level since World War Two – a fact that became a veritable industry war-cry. The latest bombshell shows starts declining and densities stagnating while land supply dries up – falling by more than 7% since 1997 – indicating that housing numbers are currently headed in one direction. And it\'s not up.</p> <p>Stewart has been in high-level discussions with senior government advisors and ministers since he crunched the unfortunate numbers, all of whom are rightly \"rattled,\" he said. \"They are not only on the wrong track, but the train is going backwards.\" There are, quite simply, two ways of boosting falling housing numbers: increasing land supply or increasing densities. Greenfield land release is a political no-no, and densities have remained static …