The Government tonight urged all races and faiths to share the same streets and neighbourhoods in an attempt to see off "social apartheid" in the country.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said no single faith or ethnic group should dominate a neighbourhood to the extent others feel "alienated, insecure or unsafe".

She said: "When we consider the impact of immigration on some of our towns, cities and latterly rural areas, we must ensure that community cohesion is maintained, and no one faith or ethnic group can totally dominate a locality to the exclusion of all others.

"There is nothing wrong with enclaves of particular groups - every city benefits from its China Towns, Little Italys or, as in London, Bangla Town, Kangaroo Valley or Little Korea.

"But no neighbourhood should be dominated by one group in ways which make members of other groups feel alienated, insecure or unsafe."

She argued, as the Government presses ahead with plans to build three million new homes by 2020, that different types of properties should be mixed together so as not to create division or segregation between rich and poor.

Bary Malik, chairman of Ahyadiya Muslim Association, said: "It is a wonderful idea.

"There are obvious apartheids across the country with richer people moving out to the suburbs from the towns. It would be nice to remove that and have all people of different wealth, religions and communities living together."

Rashid Awan, president of the Pakistan Society of West Yorkshire, said it was a "sensible" move which would encourage community cohesion and enable the new generations to learn more about each others' ways and beliefs.

He added: "It will be self-inflicted education and community learning and would help invigorate areas. I can see some light at the end of the tunnel with this idea.

"People will learn about each other properly and interact, and it will really help. I hope to see this in my lifetime."

Miss Blears used former Labour Minister Aneurin Bevan's vision of villages and towns "where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the labourer all lived in the same street" and said that, in the modern world, the same principle should apply to different ethnic groups.

She added: "In our modern context, with a far more socially and geographically mobile and diverse society than the one Bevan was analysing, there is an even greater need for communities which reflect different faiths, races and social classes.

Miss Blears also said it was "a real cause for concern" if the affluent used their wealth to shut themselves off from the rest of society and avoid mixing with the less well-off.

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