Campaigners called for a boycott of the Mipim property fair yesterday, accusing politicians of neglecting people in need of homes.

The jamboree at Olympia in London will see representatives of local authorities schmoozing with construction companies and property developers.

A reported 20,000 people across Britain are still waiting for a place to live.

Groups such as Radical Housing Network and Lambeth Housing Activists, as well as the Community section of Unite the union, have been organising the protests at Mipim’s inaugural event in Kensington on Wednesday.

“What we want to see is an emergency programme of building social housing rather than selling off our towns and cities to property developers,” Lambeth Housing Activists spokesman Ian Townson told the Star.

An investment in social housing would target the chronic housing crisis, said Mr Townson.

This week’s demonstrations, he added, are “a two-pronged attack.”

“We want to mobilise people at grassroots level and we want to influence future governments.”

Several of the country’s council authorities will be heading to Olympia to attend the Mipim awards ceremony.

Boroughs such as Southwark in South London and Newcastle’s City Council are shortlisted for the Public-Private Partnership of the Year and the Regeneration Project of the Year prize.

Campaigners, however, have argued that the transfer of housing stock from public to private rents has been directly responsible for extortionate rises in rent and a decline of secure tenancies.

Southwark’s nomination is all the more controversial as the prize would go to the demolition of one of Britain’s largest estates in Europe, the Aylesbury estate. The “regeneration project,” campaigners said, has resulted in the gentrification of the area, pushing those with lower incomes away from their community and creating what is effectively a ghetto for the rich.

Three of London’s 20 Labour councils have pulled out of the event. Despite also being nominated for awards, Hammersmith & Fulham, Tower Hamlets and Lewisham councils have declined to attend Mipim.