Current county councillor Mike Rigby in Taunton Deane for me. The only politician I have come across who understands that the answer to housing being unaffordable is to reduce the price of houses:
One of the major drivers of increased prices [is] the buy-to-let market. Already, almost one-fifth of all UK homes are owned by private investors renting them out. Clearly, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with having a private-rented sector, indeed it’s an essential component of our housing market. But is has become far too dominant. Recently, I was astonished to discover that a new housing development in my County Division saw 35% of its homes going to buy-to-let landlords.
Housing is an essential of life, like food and water, and it is worrying that its availability has been hijacked by investors. If we are to limit house-price growth and open the market to more people we will need to limit the insurgency of buy-to-let. This could be done in a number of ways, for example via the taxation system but I favour reform of tenancy law. Currently, the system, dominated by the 6-month assured shorthold tenancy, is stacked firmly in favour of the landlord, who can increase the rent to what ever he/she likes every six months and can terminate the agreement on a month’s notice.
http://mikerigby.org/2015/03/02/housing/
And he chairs the local bike-refurbishing charity. He'll do for me.