This could include settlements along key growth corridors extending from London where new infrastructure is set to be delivered, such as the routes of the Elizabeth Line, Crossrail 2 and High Speed 2.

“The country has a housing shortage,” said event organiser Policy Exchange’s head of housing Jack Airey. “Its epicentre is London and the South East but this shortage is by no means confined to the capital and its commuter belt.”

He claimed that current efforts do not go far enough to address the problem. “Bigger and bolder solutions are needed and one idea that we think needs a great deal more consideration is the building of major new settlements.”

Following the event Jack Airey told TP that “any town, no matter how big, should be built around people rather than cars”.

Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin – author of a Government commissioned ‘Independent Review of Build Out’ – agreed with the call for large new settlements and urged a greater focus on ‘place making’ than has been seen on smaller housing sites in recent years.

“The product is all too often the opposite of a place,” he said. “Instead we have serried ranks of undifferentiated objects and it doesn’t feel like a place at all.”

He argued that in order to create unique places where people will want to live, an overarching vision is needed from an architect or urban planner, “who has a conception of an aesthetic whole and who also understands the practical realities that are intertwined with that”.

This, he said will be a significant challenge and may not be achieved either through central Government or a local authority. Instead he called for mayors to oversee the creation of new towns.

Shadow Housing Minister Alex Cunningham highlighted efforts to create a garden city at Ebbsfleet in Kent, where progress has been slow with 1400 homes having been built since 2010. “In a country where we need a million new homes that scale of success will leave us very much in the housing doldrums,” he said.

He added: “Central Government must be active in identifying and bringing forward land for development and cannot leave it up to local councils alone.”

(Photograph: Ebbsfleet Development Corporation)