We need to catch up 30 years in comparison with other major cities in western Europe

Lord Rogers

The long-awaited Urban White Paper is designed to halt a population exodus from run-down urban areas to the countryside by tackling crime, poor schools and traffic growth.

Mr Prescott wants to revitalise inner cities and make them more attractive to families and young professionals.

More than 1,700 people a week are estimated to be moving to the countryside.

The leading architect and Labour peer Lord Rogers has warned it could take years to catch up with leading European cities.

Better public transport

Among the proposals that are expected in the Urban White Paper are:

• Better public transport to reduce dependence on the car
• More homes to be built on 'brownfield' sites
• An overhaul of the planning system to promote urban regeneration
• A new urban cabinet committee to co-ordinate policy on health, education and economic regeneration
• An urban summit in two years time to check on progress.

The White Paper is part of the government's response to the report last year from the Urban Taskforce, led by Lord Rogers of Riverside, who welcomed the proposals.

"It's a much better step than I had expected, but it's a long road. Obviously we have got a lot to do," he told BBC Breakfast News.

Massive dereliction

"We have done nothing for 30 years and we need to catch up 30 years in comparison with other major cities in western Europe," Lord Rogers said.

"Our cities are already improving in the centres, but there is massive dereliction.

"In east Manchester, four-fifths of the dwellings are derelict or empty sites where the majority of the population has moved out, where anybody who can, will move out.

"Thirty years of lack of interest is not something we are going to get over in a very short time."

Lord Rogers said it would take around 10 years to put Britain's major cities on a par with those in Europe such as Rotterdam and Barcelona.

Despite Lord Rogers' optimism, the amount the government has allocated to this fund is thought to be considerably less than the �500m the Urban Taskforce wanted.

Socially unstable

Andrew Bennett MP, chairman of the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee, which called for the White Paper last summer, said: "The patterns of development, characteristic of most of the last century, cannot continue.

"They have been socially unstable, concentrating the poor in inner city areas, environmentally damaging, destroying the countryside and creating a car dependent society."

Tax measures

The White Paper runs alongside a series of tax breaks promised in Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement last week.

Mr Brown pledged more than �1bn of tax breaks over five years to contribute to the regeneration programme.

The spring Budget will introduce exemption from stamp duty for all property transactions in Britain's most disadvantaged communities, at a cost of around �100m a year by 2002-03, along with tax relief for cleaning up contaminated land.

These include cutting, although not abolishing, the VAT on the conversion and repair of old buildings, and cutting stamp duty on homes in certain areas in towns and cities.