The green paper issued by the government into solutions for the housing crisis has been labelled "a missed opportunity" by international charity Help the Aged.

In response to the paper, which was launched yesterday by the minister for housing and planning, Yvette Cooper, Help the Aged said that the government had passed up a chance to make the Lifetime Homes Standard an issue of general awareness.

"The modest endorsement of Lifetime Homes Standards in the green paper is a missed opportunity to firmly put this principle in the mainstream," said the charity's senior policy adviser, Joe Oldman.

Three million new homes are provided for by 2020 in the paper, which highlighted the need for more social housing and more affordable homes, for those residences to be built quicker and to be more environmentally-friendly.

Mr Oldman continued by saying that with many older people living in conventional housing, some "basic and cost-effective alterations in design and construction" for new housing could make it "age-proof".

He called for the further development of homes to allow for "telecare and telemedicine", suggesting that the charity will be looking for such provisions when the government produces an older persons housing strategy in a couple of months' time.