The government wants Britain to become a fairer, more inclusive, mixed society with a greater sense of community.

In reality, official statistics show that Britain is becoming more socially polarised, and that housing policy is achieving the opposite of mixed inclusiveness, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in a new report out this week.

Mind the Gap by Anna Minton, looks into the gulf widening between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in Britain. It is a gulf characterised by mutual suspicion, a fear of rising crime (in fact, crime is falling) and the greater demand for private security forces at both ends of the social spectrum. Both exclusive enclaves and estates overloaded with people on benefits are ‘unbalanced’.

Housing policy has played its part in this. In recent years ‘affordable housing’ rather than ‘social housing’ has become the priority. These are very different things that cater for totally different sections of society. Affordable housing is aimed at first time buyers and key workers. Meanwhile, housing the 20% of people who rely on state subsidised accommodation is increasingly falling to entrepreneurial buy-to-letters from the private sector.

The mass purchase of houses for renting to people on benefits has fuelled huge price rises in places like Hartlepool and Crewe, putting property further out of reach for some.

This process can leave individuals and families housed in poor quality rented accommodation or over-concentrated in sink estates where poverty of aspiration is endemic.

Louis Armstrong, RICS chief executive, said: "We know we are building less and less social housing and we know that more people are choosing to live in gated communities, deliberately cutting themselves off from mainstream society. We know that the use of private security is on the rise and that social mobility is on the wane."

"It is not a question about whether or not these things are happening. They are. The question is whether the people of Britain as a nation are happy to follow the American model leading to a fractured, more fearful and less mixed society."