Cllr Kaiser was speaking after meeting Housing Minister Brandon Lewis and seven other local authority executives in Whitehall to discuss the housing crisis facing the south east.

Cllr Kaiser, executive member for housing and planning at Wokingham Borough Council (WBC), said: “We are doing all we can, but because of soaring house prices out of our control it is impossible for young people to get on the housing ladder.

“We are in the same situation as other councils in the south east, including neighbours Brackell, Reading, and Windsor.” Cllr Kaiser said he shared the same worries as those highlighted by the Wokingham News last week.

He said: “The issues your paper has raised are of deep concern to me and we take them very seriously at Wokingham Borough Council. We are victims of our own success in Wokingham because everyone wants to live here.

“It is a wonderful and prosperous place to live, and figures show the borough has the highest car ownership and highest ownership of second cars per household than anywhere else in the country.” He said WBC had four ‘strategic locations’ earmarked for housing, and was pressing ahead to build 13,000 new homes by 2026, with 2,000 earmarked for Arborfield, and help was being given to those who want to build their own houses.

He said the council wants 35% of new homes to be ‘affordable’ and called on developers to release their ‘land banks’ so homes can be built, He also wants to see housing associations build more houses.

Cllr Kaiser said: “It is like schools. We build schools but do not own them because we have to hand them over to academies, and when we build houses we hand them over to the housing associations.” He said the meeting with the housing minister was part of a series and not necessarily a ‘crisis summit.’ But he said: “For every person without a roof over their head it is a crisis, no matter what statistics say.”