The Conservatives have pledged to create a more flexible and responsive housing market.

Setting out the thinking that will underpin its policies at the next general election, the party also backed an extension of green belt land.

Housing spokesman John Hayes said he was unveiling "progressive new proposals that go beyond the Right to Buy".

One key measure will encourage greater use of shared equity schemes.

There will also be an extension of the transferable discount scheme to help people out of social housing and on to the property ladder.

Pledging to create "a more flexible and responsive" housing market, Hayes said that he was also looking at ways of helping elderly and disabled people living in inappropriate housing by improving access to accessible and adapted homes.

"This will all provide for a more fluid housing market where people can access different kinds of homes as their needs change and will break down the barrier between social and market housing," said a party document.

"By helping people to move into market housing more easily countless social houses will be freed for re-letting to families in need."

Hayes also pledged to maximise the amount of new development on brown field land.

"We have identified the need for as much new build as possible to be located on brown field land and will achieve this by the re-designation of former commercial and industrial sites, and a review of the planning, regulation and tax treatment of contaminated land with a view to making it safe and then developing more of it," he said.

Conservatives also plan to provide new green belts around towns and villages that are in danger of over-development and of merging into one another.

The statement came ahead of a wider announcement on housing to be unveiled by the party this autumn.

"Under the Conservatives shared ownership would become a practical possibility for those living in social housing," pledged Hayes.

"Under progressive new proposals that go beyond the Right to Buy - the Right to Own - Conservatives will promote the availability of transferable discounts that enable people to make the transition from social housing to the home of their choice, and by moving from social housing into market housing this would free up large numbers of houses for rent."