Many former council tenants have been "trapped" in their homes by right-to-buy legislation, a housing expert has claimed.

The policy was introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government 30 years ago.

But Dr Maarten van Ham of St Andrews University said it had failed to mobilise the workforce as expected.

His research suggested right-to-buy had left many people "stuck in the same house and the same neighbourhood".

Right-to-buy owners were more likely to express a desire to move than traditional owners, a finding which Dr van Ham said suggested they may have had difficulty in moving because their houses were hard to sell.

He added: "Although the best houses sold, most of them are not in the best neighbourhoods, and people find it difficult to sell."

The research team analysed data from the British Household Panel Study and the National Child Development Study, supplementing the sample to include 10,000 households, in what it said was the first study of its kind.