BRADFORD Council has been criticised over the thousands of homes standing empty in the district.

Government figures show there are 4,154 homes which have been unoccupied for more than six months in Bradford, leading the Conservative spokesman for planning and regeneration to call on the authority to be more “proactive”.

Councillor Martin Smith said wants to see the authority doing more to bring unoccupied houses back into use, as well as getting brownfield sites put to good use providing more homes.

The Council is proposing allowing more than 2,000 new homes to be built in Cllr Smith’s Wharfedale ward to help meet housing need.

“These [empty properties] are homes that could be occupied by needy people and helping regenerate the communities and the economy of the district. Bradford has reduced the number, mainly within the private sector, but this is an area where more funding could help those needing homes to get back into the economy of Bradford,” he said.

“A more proactive attitude by the Council of compulsory purchase and refurbishing and then selling would not only improve the economy but be a quick way of getting the long term homes back into use.”

He said the council should pull together a list of brownfield sites that could be developed so it could apply for government funding to clean-up the areas.

“We have not yet submitted our list to government for these grants when other councils have already done so,” he said.

Deputy council leader Councillor Val Slater said she was surprised by the “naive” comments from a senior councillor who should know the process of using compulsory purchase orders (CPOs).

“The current CPO powers are quite complex and we have to go through a legal process. It’s usually where we’ve gone into a property which is in a bad state of repair or has real issues. But the other side of the legal process is that the owner of the property has to be protected as well,” she said.

“I think sometimes people think we can just CPO a building for a pound, when actually they have to be at market value.”

She pointed out that six months is not a long period for a property to stand empty, if someone is in the process of refurbishing it, or the owner has died and family members have yet to take on or sell the house.

Cllr Slater said the Council gathers information on unoccupied properties via its Council Tax department, although now that unoccupied houses can still be taxed, owners may not come forward to report them empty.

She said the council continues to work with owners of empty properties, encouraging them to refurbish unoccupied homes if needs be, but restricted budgets meant a balance had to be struck on Council spending.