The report expresses concern over council housing

The plan calls for housing needs to be addressed across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Regional Housing Strategy, which has been produced by the Regional Housing Forum (RHF), looks at rising house prices, the shortage of homes for key workers and homelessness.

Launching the strategy in Newmarket on Thursday, Mick Sander, chair of RHF, said: "The east of England is at something of a crossroads.

"It is experiencing unprecedented growth, yet it has some significant pockets of deprivation.

"It has many problems and challenges to face at the local level, yet is all too conscious of the pressures and forces exerted by London on its housing markets."

The strategy sets out five overall aims:

• To ensure everyone can live in a decent home at an affordable price. It is estimated that 29,665 families are in housing need each year in the east of England. Currently 35% of council homes in the region are failing to meet the Government's decent homes standard.

• To contribute effectively to social inclusion, including help to ensure the long-term survival of rural communities, and improving the housing opportunities for people from black and minority ethnic communities.

• To improve housing to ensure good health, and meet the needs of an ageing population. For example, 19% of the region's population is over pensionable age, and poverty among pensioners in this region is the second highest in England.

• To invest in housing in areas which need homes for workers in local businesses including linking affordable housing into plans for economic development to allow the growth of the regional economy. The East of England is one of the country's skill shortage hotspots, with about 16,000 skill shortage vacancies.

• To contribute to a sustainable environment, including ensuring new housing schemes which are friendly to the environment.

Simon Woodbridge, chair of the regional assembly's housing and sustainable communities panel, said: "Good quality decent housing for all, in the right place at the right time, may seem an impossibly challenging vision.

"But the assembly believes this strategy will allow us to make the concerted effort which the Government is asking us to make in turning this vision into a reality for the east of England."