THE Government is to award Bradford Council more than £9m for boosting the number of homes in the district.

The New Homes Bonus incentivises local authorities to grant planning permission for housing projects and Bradford’s bonus for 2016/17 will total £9,122,809, new documents show.

Council bosses will meet next week to decide whether to allocate part of the cash to improve infrastructure in some of the areas affected by the new homes.

In 2015/16, 1,800 extra homes were built at a variety of different developments across the district.

A new report, by regeneration director Mike Cowlam, says that at 36 of these developments the council had asked the developers to fund upgrades to local infrastructure, such as schools and play areas, to offset the impact of the new homes.

But in the majority of cases, developers successfully argued that these payments - known as Section 106 agreements - should be reduced or removed because they made the schemes financially unviable.

The council had asked the developers for a total of £6.3m to expand school places and £2.3m for sports and leisure facilities.

But it only secured £3.8m for schools and £1.1m for recreation, leaving neighbourhoods without much-needed infrastructure worth £3.6m.

On Tuesday, Bradford Council’s Executive will meet to decide whether to spend part of the New Homes Bonus on school places and recreation facilities to make up part of this shortfall.

Mr Cowlam’s report says there were 591 homes built where the full developer contributions were not secured, and that these homes will generate £877,000 in New Homes Bonus.

He suggests putting £605,00 towards schools and £272,000 towards sports and leisure facilities.

He says: “It is fully recognised that new residential development creates additional strain on existing services such as recreational facilities.”

He says while there is still some pressure on primary school places across the district, the biggest challenge in years to come will be on secondary school places.

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, Bradford Council’s executive member for regeneration, planning, and transport, said: “The New Homes Bonus is not ring-fenced by the Government and could be spent on any service, but we want to make sure we are helping communities absorb new housing developments by directing this money towards new infrastructure projects.

“It is vital that education and recreation facilities keep pace with the number of new people living in an area, providing the funding to achieve this balance is a key priority for the Council.”

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said the new allocations brought the total amount of New Homes Bonus allocated to local councils to more than £4.8 billion.

The spokesman said: “Councils can decide how to spend the New Homes Bonus. However, we expect councils to consult communities about how they will spend the money, especially communities where housing stock has increased.”

The Executive meets at City Hall at 10.30am on Tuesday.