The Conservative Party set out a series of new housing policies that it claims will promote social opportunity and neighbourhood pride.
According to Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps, the measures, which are outlined in a new policy paper, will provide England's four million social tenants with genuine social mobility and restore pride to rundown housing estates by helping to encourage social responsibility.
The proposals include:
National Housing Federation Chief Executive David Orr said:
"The Conservative Party's housing green paper is innovative and imaginative in many ways.
"The idea of giving tenants with an excellent payment history an equity share in their social home is a proposal that looks interesting and merits further investigation. It could assist some tenants into owner occupation and by doing so create a new letting.
"The proposal to allow housing associations to use public funding to bring empty homes back into use is an excellent one. With such acute housing need in much of the country, no-one wants to see homes lying empty."
Sarah Webb, CIH Chief Executive said:
"There is much in the Policy Paper to welcome. However, no party has yet articulated robust plans to tackle the chronic shortage of affordable housing across the UK.
Unfortunately we are still only building one home for every two households that are being formed.
I would urge David Cameron to develop his Party’s thinking further by taking a more holistic approach to housing reform and we look forward to debating this with him."
Adam Sampson, Chief Executive of Shelter, said:
"We recognise that there is a need to make it easier for social housing tenants to move, for example to pursue job opportunities, and we welcome the intention of supporting mobility for social tenants.
However, with 1.8 million households currently on council housing waiting lists, the top priority from all political parties must be to deliver the social rented homes this country so desperately needs.
More social homes will not only provide better choice for existing tenants but also give people trapped on waiting lists the chance of a decent, affordable home.
Given the severity of the housing crisis, we urge Conservative councils around the country to champion house building at a local level to ensure we start building now."
Housing Minister Iain Wright responded by saying:
"These are old ideas re-hashed to sound new, but as always there is no detail as to how much they will cost or how they will be delivered.
"More importantly, though they sit next to another Tory pledge - to slash £800 million from the budget for investing in housing - which could mean, for example, that 10,000 fewer new homes for social rent could be built.
"The Tories are talking incoherent nonsense on housing - their sums simply don't add up. However, even if they are confused about their promises, at least we can be very clear about their record."