THE BEATLES sang that Norwegian wood is good but they never dreamed it might solve Oxfordshire’s housing shortage.

A Wheatley couple, the first to buy a new type of log-cabin style house, say they saved £100,000 compared to building a traditional property.

Dave Parker said: “We did think about bricks and mortar but these log houses are beautiful and have three-and-a-half inch thick solid-wood walls.”

He added: “There’s stacks of space and it’s fantastic, so it was a no-brainer.

“If you had them as low-cost housing, they’d be absolutely brilliant.”

Mr Parker and wife Carol, who own and run Wheatley Farm Shop, have lived in a mobile home in the grounds for the past six years.

Their new Inovar home, made from Norwegian timber, was delivered in sections and assembled on site.

It was spray-painted inside and out and wired at the factory.

It includes an open-plan living room with wood-burning stove, kitchen, bedroom with walk-in wardrobe and shower plus a main bathroom.

Glass doors open to glass-fronted decking at the front.

The couple, who have added underfloor heating, say running costs are low.

Prices for the log houses range from £80,000.

In his Autumn Statement last week, Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged to provide more affordable housing.

And he promised to relax restrictions on grants 'to allow a wider range of housing types', thought to mean pre-built housing.

Communities Minister Sajid Javid criticised developers last week for failing to deliver more homes and ‘land-banking’.

He said builders who buy land and wait for the value to rise are holding up development.

Coupled with a shortage of bricks, bricklayers and plasterers, experts say it may be difficult to provide thousands of new homes needed.

Nick Forrester, who owns Norwegian Log Buildings which builds the Inovar house, has lived in Oxfordshire since the 1970s.

He said: “Seventy per cent of housing in North America is made of wood.

“We have been obsessed with bricks and mortar in this country since the Victorians, but we need to look at alternatives.”

He added: “If the government freed up more land, this would be a way of providing many nice starter homes for £80,000, rather than one of the big developers building six mock-mansions and selling them for a fortune.”

Norwegian Log Buildings has been supplying log cabins for 30 years but its new, full-size homes are patented.

The one-, two- and three-bedroom, single-storey houses can be delivered and assembled within seven-to-ten days.

Mr Forrester said: “I’d like one of those government minsters to visit our factory and see if our Norwegian wood is the solution to their problem.”