A NEW wave of house building is set to help the growing number of Hampshire families who are struggling to find a home.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, pictured right, said the house building target for England would rise from 200,000 to 240,000 new homes a year until 2016.

The number of extra developments earmarked for Hampshire has not yet been revealed - but MPs said the county would have to build more than previously planned.

The need for more homes was underlined by Government figures showing the number of Hampshire households languishing on waiting lists for social housing has more than doubled since 1997, from 23,800 to more than 53,600 last year.

In Southampton the number on the waiting list increased from 2,300 to 11,100 over the same period.

With average house prices in Southampton now £168,037 (up 3.9 per cent on last year) and £246,890 in Hampshire (up 6.9 per cent), the picture is also bleak for young families looking to get on to the housing ladder for the first time.

First time buyers in the south-east are now taking out mortgages worth 5.3 times their income, compared with an average of just 2.9 times their income five years ago.

The proportion of household income spent by first-time buyers on mortgage interest payments in the region has increased from 13.5 per cent in 2002 to 19.7 per cent now.

Mr Brown, setting out his draft legislative programme for the next Parliamentary session, said: "In two eras of the last century - the interwar years and the 1950s onwards - Britain made new house building a national priority.

"Now through this decade and right up to 2020 I want us - in environmentally friendly ways using principally brownfield land and building eco-towns and villages - to meet housing need by building over a quarter of a million more homes than previously planned, a total by 2020 of three million new homes for families across the country."

Mr Brown also announced plans to set up a new homes agency to bring surplus public land into housing use.

No easy way out' Skills Secretary John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said: "There is no easy way out of this - we need to build new homes. It is immensely important to people in the south.

"In Hampshire we are going to have to have more homes because its our children and our grandchildren who won't have anywhere to live if we don't have new development."

Mr Denham said he hoped Hampshire would be chosen for one of Mr Brown's eco-towns.

Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton Test, welcomed the "much higher'' annual house building target.

Dr Whitehead said he expected Southampton's house building target, currently at 815 new homes a year, "will have to rise''.

He said the city had an estimated shortfall of "well over'' 1,000 affordable homes every year, but cautioned that other areas would have to take their fair share as well as the urban area of Southampton.

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh, said: "We do need more housing in Hampshire. The number of people on the housing list has increased sharply''.