Southwark council will formally invite bids from commercial developers next week for one of the UK's largest regeneration programmes, the £1.5billion scheme to rebuild Elephant & Castle.

The bidding battle for the scheme is expected to attract interest from property developers around the world.

Jon Abbott, Southwark council's assistant Elephant & Castle development director, said: "Although we have not yet officially launched the commercial procurement, we are excited by the high level of interest being shown by leading names in the development sector, and we look forward to viewing the detailed proposals."

The redevelopment scheme includes building a new shopping centre with around 1m sq ft of shops, restaurants, bars and leisure facilities, as well as the construction of 5,300 homes in the area.

Regional partners in south west England are proposing to establish a fund to pay for essential infrastructure costs as the region attempts to develop 150,000 homes by 2016.

The document, known as 'The Way Ahead,' has been put together by the South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWEARDA), the South West Regional Assembly and the Government Office South West.

A revolving fund would finance infrastructure costs, so as to ensure that developers have funding to kick-start the scheme. Money will then be recouped from developers once in profit.

Priority schemes outlined in the paper include a new settlement in Exeter and an economic regeneration programme in south Bristol.

SWEARDA have already held talks with several financial institutions.

The survey found, that 19% of property investors and owners expect rental yields to fair best in London, while 15% selected the North East, and 14% predicted the South East.

Analyst, Rob Thomas of UK Housing Economics, claims that house prices are set to rise on average by 10%, or £17,000, in the next two years.

With more people employed then ever before and due to the fact that population is outstripping the supply of new properties, Mr Thomas believes that today's average home price of £168,000 will increase by £6,000 or 4% this year. That is likely to be followed by a 6%, or £11,000 rise in 2006.

Mr Thomas said: "Previous housing crashes were triggered by higher interest rates and recession. Today, neither rates nor unemployment are about to soar. That means incomes aren't about to collapse."

"Without any of the triggers for a crash, it seems bizarre for people to talk about prices plunging," he added.

Stamp Duty Has Risen Nine-Fold

New figures released by the Halifax reveals that, the cost of stamp duty has risen nine-fold over the last ten years.

Despite soaring house prices, the lowest threshold (£60,000) for paying tax on a property purchase, has not been raised since 1993. As a result, the government is expected to take in over £4 billion in stamp duty this financial year, compared to £465 million in 1993-4.

Halifax says that in 1993, buyers paid an average of around £45,000 for their first homes, compared with an average of £131,000 today. The Halifax also claims that if the Government had increased the £60,000 threshold in line with house price inflation since 1993, it would stand at £156,900, which would prevent many first-time buyers having to pay stamp duty.

"Housing activity is an important part of the UK economy, and it is right that a government should take its fair share of tax revenue from it," said Halifax chief economist Martin Ellis. "Fairness is a two-way street, however, and unfortunately successive governments, irrespective of their political colouring, have failed to play fair by homeowners by declining to index link the stamp duty threshold to house price increases," he added.