Government targets for the provision of new homes across the South West are totally unrealistic, according to a leading property expert.

Dr Angus McIntosh, head of research at King Sturge, the South West's largest firm of international property consultants, said it is impossible to see how Prime Minister Gordon Brown's pledge to ensure 27,000 new homes are built in the region, every year for the next 20 years, can be fulfilled.

He was speaking at King Sturge's annual South West Property Review and Forecast events, held on consecutive evenings at Plymouth's Tamar Science Park and at the Met Office, in Exeter.

"Nationally the Government wants to build 3 million new homes by 2020, and the other main political parties have similar ambitions - but we have to ask whether this is really achievable," said Dr McIntosh.

"In the heyday of the property market in the 1950s and 60s, we were building 400,000 homes per year but conditions were vastly different then. Now, Section 106 Agreements, building regulations and environmental and sustainability criteria, all mean that the process is far more difficult and time-consuming.

Dr Angus McIntosh, King Sturge: "Focusing purely on the South West, 27,000 new homes are needed annually to 2026, but the figures just do not stack up."

"Focusing purely on the South West, 27,000 new homes are needed annually to 2026, but the figures just do not stack up.

"In Devon, for example, there were under 3,500 new units completed in 2006/07, and the figures for Cornwall and Somerset were around 2,000 and 1,600 respectively.

"Likewise under 4,000 new social homes were built or refurbished in 2005/06, with the estimated figure for 2007/08 being only slighter higher. In 2006, the waiting list for affordable housing in the region rose by 15 per cent.

"Clearly, we are falling far short of what the government says we need in terms of new homes and there is no likelihood in the short term of any change. We have to ask where, in current conditions, all of these new homes are going to come from."

Dr McIntosh also said continued speculation about a UK housing crash were wide of the mark, with average prices in the South West rising faster than the national average, to reach a regionwide figure of around £204,000.

"As long as the economy continues to grow at around 2 per cent a year, which it should do, there will not be any housing crash," he commented.

"In fact since 1955, there has only been one occasion when the housing market has truly plummeted, and that was 1991-92."

Dr McIntosh also forecast that the region's employment profile for the next five years would continue to follow the same pattern it had done in recent years - with further growth in jobs in the retail, catering and hotel sector, along with health and education, and financial and business services. Meanwhile, there will be continued contraction in public administration, defence and manufacturing.