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Who could object to the BBC2 series Restoration, which climaxed last weekend, picking Manchester's Victoria Baths as its pin-up project? Me. And so, I think, should you – or anyone concerned with ordinary people's housing, now and in the future.

Only a curmudgeon would begrudge giving additional support to that Manchester building. Its tiling and its canopied roof look fine. They would look even better after the application of a couple of million quid.

But the programme veered in the direction of saying the preservation of old buildings was a good thing in itself. It recruited Prince Charles – known for living in fine old buildings – to say we should all rush to the defence of what he called "good friends in the neighbourhood".

It just so happens that the Manchester baths and the Stoke chapel also featured on the programme are both just down the road from market renewal areas where public money is being spent to pull down old buildings and assist in the construction of (fewer) new ones. Restoration did feature a couple of what you might call ordinary houses, but there wasn't much in the programme about the pre-First World War dwellings in which millions of people still live. The cameras did not go poking around the two-up, two-down housing that can still be found in many British cities.

In housing for ordinary people, renewal and replacement are what matters, not restoration. The construction industry does not want the revival of old masons' skills but a thorough revolution in land acquisition, preparation and building techniques. Developer Stuart Lipton deplores the complacency of an industry that does things much the same way as the Romans – and he is absolutely right.

Restoration was a reactionary programme not just because of its celebration of grand houses inhabited by landowners and plutocrats, to which hoi polloi are now graciously to be admitted – provided the government steps in with lots of money. Very little was said in the programme about inheritance tax, except as a negative aside by some old biddy. But inheritance tax could be one way of breaking the British national obsession with house price inflation – and all its consequences for those unable to afford owning a home but who rely instead on the second-class tenure of social renting.

But my real objection to the programme was the way it affirmed a particular set of attitudes to construction, renewal and land use. These attitudes are a prime cause of restrictions in land supply, high house prices and shortfalls in affordability. Exhibit one: Restoration buttressed the idea that Britain's rural heritage is under threat, an idea deployed by those who oppose new house building on "green fields" and so restrict supply. Exhibit two: Restoration took a stand against change, which can mean decline, ruin and clearance. But the housing stock ought to be in a permanent state of change – as dwellings are subdivided, buildings put up for one purpose are adapted for another and brand new buildings put up on previously used sites. Densities should change, to reflect changing employment and population. Streetscapes created in one era should be erased to make way for urban forms more suited to another.

Social housing has a stake in experiment and architectural adventure, if only we could afford it. Restoration appealed to the forces of fogeydom, and they are strong. They are also inimical to better housing for less-well-off people.