Lord Heseltine has asked Sir Terry Farrell to join the Conservative party鈥檚 taskforce to regenerate UK cities.

Heseltine, the former Tory deputy leader and a former environment secretary, is chairing party leader David Cameron鈥檚 cities taskforce, which also launched a paper setting out its initial proposals today.

The seven-strong group also includes Dame Mavis McDonald, chief civil servant at John Prescott鈥檚 ODPM until she retired last year, and Angus Kennedy, the chief executive of Birmingham regeneration agency Castle Vale Housing Action Trust.

The paper, Releasing Our Cities, recommends that the government should scrap its housing market renewal programme.

It also says that regional development agencies鈥� funding should be handed over to local councils and that there should a more flexible planning regime within designated regeneration priority areas.