The number of cheaper homes for rent across Bradford has fallen by more than 11,000 as more people try to find affordable housing.

The amount of social housing available has plunged by a quarter – 26 per cent – across the district in the 30 years since Margaret Thatcher introduced her famous ‘right-to-buy’ policy, new figures have revealed.

Critics argue that waiting lists for housing have lengthened because the homes that were sold off have not been replaced.

There are now just 31,903 social housing properties across Bradford, down from 43,252 in 1981 and 37,199 in 1997.

According to housing charity Shelter, there are 13,403 households currently waiting for homes in Bradford.

The Government has now ordered the sale of up to £10 billion of publicly-owned land across the country to allow 100,000 new homes to be built.

A spokesman for Incommunities, Bradford’s largest social housing provider, said in the past year 6,177 people had placed a bid for a home via its Open Moves homes system.

She said: “Incommunities has built more than 400 new affordable homes for either rent or shared ownership during the past four years and we have submitted a bid to the Homes and Communities Agency to enable us to build a further 229 new homes over the next four years.

“We work closely with the Council on their Empty Homes Strategy in order to help bring more empty homes back into use.

“Incommunities runs the district’s homelessness service on contract to the Council. We also worked in partnership with the Council to develop a private rented bond guarantee scheme, which has so far provided over 300 households with a home.”

Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East David Ward said: “One of the major failings of the previous Labour Government was that it did so little to increase the amount of social housing available.”

Conservative Shipley MP Philip Davies said: “There is a variety of reasons why we need more social housing.

“The benefits system which rewards people for living apart doesn’t particularly help. We want to make sure there is enough provision in the right places."

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