It looks like both the Government and Watford Borough Council want the same thing many of us want - good quality housing that ordinary people can afford - it's just that they don't agree on how to go about it.

The Government this week announced new planning laws that it says will mean housing developments will not be blocked in designated 'growth zones'. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick says local people will be consulted when these zones are created, but after that there will be no stopping developers.

Commercial buildings will also be ripe for conversion, and two storeys can be added to existing homes.

This will be little consolation to people who might feel large parts of Watford have already become 'growth zones'. And some fear this will lead to loss of local control and poor quality housing.

They will no longer be legal, but Watford's now infamous windowless flats application will not be forgotten.

The Mayor, for his part, wants more local power over what is built, and a way to ensure developers can be forced to add to affordable housing stocks.

The Government argues that the UK's planning system has been the brake on development, and simplifying it will lead to thousands of new home being built - even in areas where this might be unpopular - once more bringing house prices within reach of people on average wages.

This might mean building near the leafy towns where people traditionally support the government, but wooing new voters with homes they can afford in the places they want or need to live.

Or it might mean fewer controls on building in towns like Watford, where new high rise developments are already unpopular, but with blame even more readily directed at the Government.

It could mean both. Whatever happens, it remains to be seen whether housing supply eventually catches up with demand, prices fall or wages one day catch up with prices, or whether generation rent becomes the new normal.