A spokesman for the ODPM told ePolitix.com "The planning reform agenda is all about encouraging greater public engagement in the planning system. Planning is a positive tool and it is important for everyone in the community to get involved.

"Planning is a key building block of the Sustainable Communities Plan. This plan is designed to provide not just homes but communities - communities where people choose to live."

Forum Response: ESRC

Dr Helen Jarvis, who led the ESRC research, told ePolitix.com: "Many people say they like to live in a compact, convenient urban neighbourhood where they can walk to the corner shop, reach transport links and convene for social activity. However, finding affordable housing in these successful cities is a major problem - in London and Edinburgh, more than one income is needed to enter the housing market.

"Our survey, of over 100 families, showed that parents are far more likely to increase their travelling time to accommodate changes in jobs, schools or social activities, than to consider moving house.

"Policymakers should take more account of these changing lifestyle choices when designing cities of the future."

Forum Response: British Retail Consortium

A spokesman for the BRC told ePolitix.com: "Communities and the people who live in them don't exist in a world separate from the businesses that the supply essential services, jobs and quality of life. This makes it key that planners understand the role of businesses in a community.

"In recent history, we have had far too many examples of planning policy that clearly didn't understand business and therefore, clearly didn't understand the communities they were meant to be serving.

"Retailers' success depends on their ability to meet the needs of their customers and the modern lifestyles they lead. Shops invest huge amounts in customer trials, focus groups, and surveys. Retail is a dynamic and innovative industry that tracks changes in our lifestyle. In recent years we have seen the growth of innovations such as e-tailing, twenty-four hour shopping and convenience foods all created to respond to their customers needs.

"Planners should be seeking to emulate this example - good retailing stems from understanding the needs and desires of their customers and good planning can only come from a similar level of understanding and then responding to the needs of the people they are trying to serve."

Forum Response: British Property Federation

Liz Peace, chief executive of the BPF, told ePolitix.com: "The research highlights the danger of planners using crystal balls when determining planning policy. Of course land use policy should be framed in the context of important government objectives but it should not over reach itself in attempting to govern or anticipate how people might, in future, live their lives, or the demands that business might place upon it.

"Providing some medium term certainty when setting planning policy is important, but no planning system will ever predict the future, or necessarily even be able to predict how the market will react to the policyitself.

"Consequentially it is better for planning to retain a degree of flexibility. The government is, we believe, alive to this fact and is therefore proposing that local planning authorities adopt a new system of local development frameworks that stick to certain national, regional and local core objectives but can also be updated far more readily and swiftly to effectively track change."