The work Bradford Council has done to bring nearly 2,000 derelict homes back into use in the district must be applauded.

It is also a massive vindication of the T&A’s long-running campaign to use brownfield sites for housing rather than continually despoiling green spaces.

It is an absolute travesty that so many schemes have been allowed, and continue to be proposed, on these green sites when, as our Save Our Green Spaces campaign highlighted, hundreds and hundreds of empty properties that could be developed exist throughout the Bradford district.

It is vital the Council continues to identify empty houses and work to bring them back into use to meet the growing housing demand.

As our story today shows, it not only helps protect our environment, it has also unlocked a huge pot of cash for Council coffers to continue with similar schemes.

But the dossier handed to the Council by the T&A last year did not just show empty homes; it showed dozens of empty factories, mills, pubs, schools and other buildings, left to rot and decay, that desperately need to be brought back into use.

If the demand for houses over the next 15 years is anything like the 45,000 stated by the Council – and we would argue that this is a gross over-estimation – then it must find a way to encourage developers to use these properties rather than simply start afresh on greenfield sites.

This is very much a step in the right direction, but if the stated demand for housing is to be met, then to protect our precious green spaces, much more must be done to develop the derelict properties that blight too much of our district.