Personally, I think that something should be done to limit the cost of renting...
Myself and my wife have been extremely fortunate to have recently been accepted for a mortgage, and had an offer accepted on our first house - though this was due to her parents being able to give us a huge helping hand with a 30K deposit (the house is 151K).
Prior to this, we have been renting in Bristol whilst she's full time at uni, and my salary has funded living there, but the cost of renting our current place has risen from an initial £675 a moth, to £695, and now to £725 - if we were to stay for the remainder of her course then I could easily to expect that figure to rise to nearly (maybe over) £800 a month!
Though I totally accept our situation can be changed by moving to a cheaper place, it seems daft that rent can cost this much, when our mortgage is £600 fixed for 5 years.
Though I appreciate that our landlord probably has a variable mortgage that will mean his repayments go up, maybe there should be some sort of change to regulations or something, so that 'buy to let' homes can only be funded by small mortgages (maybe 60%), and the monthly fee charged to tennants cannot exceed X amount; this would mean that people 'stuck' renting have a more realistic chance of saving a deposit...
Just my thoughts, I'm certainly glad to be out of the renting trap (as I personally see it) and looking forward to the challenges that being a home owner brings.