Just a few years ago, Chain Street was a blight on Bradford. The properties were crumbling, the area was a haunt for undesirables, and vermin ran free among the dumped rubbish. It was most certainly not a pleasant sight to see on one of the main roads into Bradford city centre.

Today, work begins on a most welcome revamp of the site which will see modern family social housing rise from the unlamented ashes of one of the most unedifying blots on the landscape the inner city had.

The old blocks were demolished two years ago, and today developer Barnfield Construction, on behalf of social housing landlord Incommunities, begins work on 32 new properties which will be a mix of social housing, private rented accommodation and homes for sale.

This is exactly the sort of thing the Telegraph & Argus has long been campaigning for with our Green Spaces campaign. Greenfield sites in rural locations are obviously more attractive to developers because of the high premiums that executive homes can command.

But what Bradford needs is affordable housing, and the best place to build this is on existing post-industrial brownfield sites or cleared former housing blocks such as Chain Street – the infrastructure such as transport links, shops and schools is often already in place.

So it is most welcome that Chain Street has been rescued from the vandals and vermin and will rise again as a desirable – and more importantly, affordable – place to live right in the heart of Bradford.

Incommunities and Barnfield Construction are to be commended for their forward-thinking attitude and hopefully more developers will take a leaf out of their book.