ONLY well-off professionals, especially childless ones, can afford David Cameron’s starter homes scheme, warned housing charity Shelter in new research yesterday.

The PM announced plans in March to build 200,000 homes on brownfield sites over the next five years to be sold at 80 per cent of market values.

But this would be at the expense of those needing truly affordable housing as it would use up land or money set aside for social rented accommodation, Shelter said in its report.

To reach the 200,000 target, around 40,000 homes would have to be built per year — which dwarfs the total amount of affordable housing built annually, it added.

Green Party housing spokesperson Tom Chance dismissed the plan as a “subsidy for wealthy professionals” and that even the “affordable” homes will be out of reach once they are sold on.

Families on Chancellor George Osborne’s so-called “national living wage,” which he claimed would reach £9 an hour by 2020, would not enable the purchase of any starter home in 98 per cent of English local authorities, according to the research findings.

Only 136 councils (42 per cent) would have homes for families on average wages of up to £40,000 a year. This jumps to 228 (70 per cent) for those on higher salaries than the average.

Dual-income families on a combined salary of more than £100,000 a year are able to buy a home in 244 areas (75 per cent).

And high-earning professionals with no children would afford any starter home in any local authority.

But single persons on the Osborne Wage would lose out the most — being unable to buy a house anywhere in the country.

“The government needs to look very closely at this policy before going down the wrong track,” Shelter said.

The Conservative Party’s proposal states that London starter homes would cost up to £450,000 and up to £250,000 in other regions.

Just three boroughs in the capital — Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Bexley — would remain “affordable” where housing is already in high demand.