A wide-ranging review of housing in England and Wales published by the RICS makes a number of recommendations. It claims it is aiming at bringing about greater choice and flexibility to encourage strong neighbourhoods and create a flourishing market.

The recommendations include questioning whether all badly run-down neighbourhoods are sustainable and whether every neighbourhood can be regenerated. RICS would like to see a rebalancing of regeneration policies through a policy of 'invest in the best' rather than 'worst first' to prevent decline rather than seek to fix it at a late stage It also wants the Government to support the greater use of tax rather than interest rates as a means of controlling volatility in house prices.

Chairman of the RICS housing policy panel, Michael Newey, said: "It is ten years since RICS last looked in detail housing. The fact that the homes which will be around at the end of this century have already probably been built says much about present housing policy."