Government plans to regenerate 100 housing estates across Britain

The aim of the regeneration is "nothing short of social turnaround, and with massive estate regeneration, tenants protected and land unlocked for new housing all over Britain", he said.

The government will provide a £140 million fund to contribute towards the cost of redeveloping 100 housing estates across the country, including "some of the most run-down housing estates", Cameron said. Some estates will be knocked down and completely replaced, whilst others will be modernised with improvements made to the infrastructure, layout and facilities.

The fund will also help cover the cost of temporary rehousing and early construction costs, he said.

Cameron said a new advisory panel will be established to "help galvanise our efforts and their first job will be to build a list of post-war estates across the country that are ripe for re-development, and work with up to 100,000 residents to put together regeneration plans".

The panel will be lead by Michael Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister. The panel will provide a detailed report by this year's autumn statement.

Woodberry Down in Hackney and Packington Estate in Islington are examples of recent estates that have been regenerated.

A recent report prepared by Savills shows that regeneration of housing estates in London could create thousands of new homes in the city using the "complete street model". According to the report, "approximately 1,750 hectares of London’s 8,500 hectares of [local authority housing estates] might be capable of this type of regeneration with the potential to provide somewhere between 190,000 – 500,000 homes on complete streets. This represents an increase over the number of existing homes of between 54,000 and 360,000."

Housing estates were previously constructed with a lower density than modern housing developments and often open space would be wasted. According to the report, if the housing estates were built "using the complete streets model proposed here, an additional 480,000 households could have been housed on them."

Planning expert Victoria Lindsay of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "Whilst this is hopefully a welcome proposition, the funding details will require further thought and detail. It is unlikely that £140m will suffice and therefore substantial private sector finance will be needed."

"It is said that the new estate regeneration advisory panel will work with up to 100,000 residents to put together regeneration plans including a set of binding guarantees for tenants and homeowners so that they are protected. However, it will be interesting to see whether the revamped estates will re-accommodate all those existing residents who had to be temporarily re-housed or whether this is more of an excuse for new housing with existing residents being decamped to other areas", said Lindsay.