Bradford has faced the second biggest decline of any city in the country in the last century, a new report has shown.

The Cities Outlook 1901 project used measures including skills levels, population, employment and wages to capture how cities have progressed or declined over the past 111 years. Only Hastings has seen a bigger downward shift than Bradford, according to the report’s findings.

Leader of Bradford Council Councillor David Green said: “Clearly what the report shows is the effect of decisions is over a long period of time.

“We have got to balance the decisions we as a Council make today both to ensure we try and deal with immediate problems that we face and also invest in a way that is laying foundations for future generations.

“That is in terms of transport infrastructure, schools and knowledge. We need to get those decisions right.”

He said the ability to invest long-term was constrained by changes in government policy.

“I am not asking for special treatment but to be treated fairly,” he said. “We are facing 20 per cent cuts over two to three years where others in the South are actually getting increases.”

The Council’s Conservative group leader Councillor Glen Miller said: “Bradford has its problems and we are working on them. They are not trawling out anything new. The Government’s got no money. What we need is private business coming in, starting business here, having more money coming in.”

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the Council Councillor Jeanette Sunderland called for a look ahead to the next 100 years.

She added: “I think we need to be very clear about priorities and that means jobs, better education, investing in provision for older people.”

The report found there was direct correlation shown between poor skills in 1901 and the health of cities’ economies today.

Alexandra Jones, chief executive of Centre for Cities, the think-tank that produced the research, said the report showed failure to invest in city economies has long-term effects for the UK economy.

MP for Bradford West George Galloway said: “It illustrates that short term cuts in expenditure, from transport infrastructure to education, have profound long-term consequences and that the way to improvement is through investing in growth, particularly in education.”

Bradford East MP David Ward said Bradford had been wealthy a century ago but had been hit by a lack of funding support after the recession of the 1980s.

He said things were set to improve with the introduction of the Leeds City Deal, which will give councils, including Bradford, more control over spending to help businesses grow and ensure future investment.

“I’m much more interested in the next 100 years than the last 100 years,” he said.