Four out of five MPs believe housing to be the most important doorstep issue, according to a new survey.

The poll conducted by campaign group Shelter found that 79 per cent of MPs put property prices as either the first or second most pressing constituency concern in their surgeries.

The findings, published in Shelter's Roof magazine on Wednesday, showed the strength of feeling among voters.

Four out of 10 respondents said constituents complained about not being able to afford to buy a home.

And 43 per cent said the high cost of renting property was the number one or two concern.

Labour MP for Peterborough Helen Clarke said the national results were not out of kilter with experience in her area.

"Four out of five case work discussions in my constituency are about housing and when I go door knocking, it's all about housing," she said.

"Unless you get proper housing you are not going to get proper health, education, law and order or economic prosperity. It all flows from housing."

Prominence

The prime minister recently acknowledged that housing would take a "much higher prominence in the political debate" in the next few years.

Ministers are planning to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in the South East in order to ease the over-heated demand.

But Shelter campaign director Ben Jackson said the government was only now facing up to the extent of the problem.

"What this shows is what many have us have been hearing more and more - housing is becoming the issue which dominates life for more and more people," he said.

"It is one of the issues which, when people look to the future, simply see things becoming worse, not better.

"For decades it has literally been the lost issue but the housing crisis has eventually begun to concentrate minds.

"The crisis that Shelter sees everyday is the impact being made homeless and living in bad housing has on health, education and well being.

"Most politicians are now waking up to the cold facts that without investment in housing, we're fighting a losing battle in eliminating poor health and education."