Support for the building of more new homes has doubled over the past four years, according to the latest British Social Attitudes survey.
More than half (56 per cent) of respondents said they are in favour of new housebuilding in their area, this is 27 percentage points more than in 2010.
The figures show that those strongly supporting new housebuilding in their area has tripled, from 5 per cent in 2010 to 16 per cent in 2014, while strong opposition has fallen by nearly a third over the same period.
At the same time the proportion of people opposed to local housebuilding has more than halved during the same period, from 46 per cent in 2010 to just over 1 in 5 today.
Not only the desire of the population for more new homes has increased but people also want to see more new buyers and opportunities created for them.
As much as 38 per cent of survey respondents said financial support for first-time buyers is the best thing the government can do to make homes more affordable. Another 27 per cent backed moves to allocate funding to councils and housing associations to build more homes.