More than 130 affordable homes are planned for brownfield sites in Bradford in a bid to ease the city’s growing housing crisis.

The Newcastle-based Home Group has been given a Government grant of more than £8.5m to help it build more than 350 homes throughout Yorkshire and the north east.

It plans to build 136 of these homes on three sites in the Bradford district, with work expected to start in 2015.

Initial plans are to build 25 homes in Abbotside Close in Five Lane Ends, 58 in the Chellow Heights area, and 53 in Douglas Road, Cutler Heights.

They would be rented out to people on low incomes to reduce the district’s 21,000-strong social housing waiting list.

The plans are at an early stage and the group wants to hold consultations with neighbours before submitting planning applications.

Home Group’s head of development, Teresa Snaith, welcomed the Homes and Communities Agency cash. Mrs Snaith said as well as reducing social housing waiting lists, the developments would bring wider benefits.

She said: “For us, it’s important that we are delivering homes in a city that has a need for affordable housing and has a big social housing waiting list. It’s about what we can bring to the city – it’s not just new homes, it’s employment, it’s everything that comes with home-building.”

The announcement was also welcomed by the National Housing Federation, which is campaigning for more affordable homes to be built.

Nearly 21,000 low-income individuals or families in Bradford are trapped on social housing waiting lists, according to the federation, while homelessness in the city has risen by 47 per cent in 12 months.

Lead manager Daniel Klemm said: “It’s great news that Home Group are building much-needed affordable homes for the people of Bradford.”

The Home Group’s latest plans are in addition to the 141 homes it is building in the city as part of a separate £14 million investment.

These include 49 homes on the site of the Holybrook centre in Redcar Road, Eccleshill, and 46 houses at Rockwell Lane, Eccleshill.