I n the next few years, spades could be in the ground for a city made of wood, in the middle of the largest new nature reserve created in England in decades, with four-bedroom homes on sale for £350,000.

It sounds too good to be true, but a cross-party coalition of campaigners is trying to make a “forest city” to house a million people a reality, with construction commencing by the end of this parliament. It would be the first such project in England since the purpose-built new town of Milton Keynes in the 1960s.

Shiv Malik, author, investor and former Guardian journalist, came up with the audacious scheme. He spent recent years writing about the rough deal millennials have in terms of housing and debt, and the fact it is incredibly difficult to build a life as previous generations did.

See Full Page