There is still a lot to do to get the Bradford district working, according to a housing chief.

Delroy Beverley, a director at the district’s biggest landlord, Incommunities, gave a call to arms urging similar organisations to take on more apprentices and help save a generation from worklessness.

His comments came as he was showing two senior Liberal Democrat politicians around the housing group’s state-of-the-art construction training centre yesterday.

Lord William Wallace of Saltaire and Bradford East MP David Ward were visiting Incommunities’ purpose-built Training Terrace at Bradford’s Dudley Hill Business Centre.

Lord Wallace, who speaks regularly in the House of Lords on the subject of apprenticeships, had wanted to see an example of good practice outside the London area, so Mr Ward’s office had arranged the visit.

Mr Beverley, director of the group’s construction arm Propertysolutions, said while it was a compliment to have been chosen, there was a serious message to get across to the politicians about the scale of worklessness and the importance of apprenticeships.

He said: “Incommunities can only do so much. We are recruiting ten apprentices this year to celebrate our tenth anniversary, but I won’t be able to find a job for all 700 applicants and I won’t know where 690 of them end up. That reminds me that there is still a lot of work to do.

“Organisations that look like us and act like us need to show some social conscience and some social vision.

“If we want the next generation of Bradfordians to be an economically vibrant generation, we have to do something in this generation.

“There’s a message in it for David Ward and Lord Wallace that there is still work to do.”

He said while the apprenticeship scheme cost Incommunities more than £500,000 a year, there were huge societal benefits.

Lord Wallace said the training facilities were “very impressive”.

He said: “I only wish there were more schemes like this in Bradford.”

Mr Ward said: “What I think Incommunities is doing so well really is giving young people in particular, but also different age groups, skills they will have for the rest of their life.

“This needs to be expanded across the whole of the public sector and the private sector as well.”