One in three streets in Britain has at least one property that has been empty for six months or more - report

The £50m Empty Homes Community Grants Programme led to almost 2,000 properties across England being brought back into use by community groups

There are more than a million homes lying empty in England and Wales, according to a new study by the Office for National Statistics (Getty Images)

One in three streets in the UK has at least one property that has been empty for six months or more, according to Nationwide, leading to calls from the building society for the next government to bring empty houses back into use.

“It is absurd that so many properties remain empty and decaying, while at the same time we have a housing supply crisis, with many people unable to find anywhere to live that they can afford,” said Leigh Pearce, the chief executive of the Nationwide Foundation, the charity funded by the mutual which provides grants to bring empty properties back into use.

The £50m Empty Homes Community Grants Programme was introduced in 2012 and led to almost 2,000 properties across England being brought back into use by community groups.

But the programme ended in March and faces being scrapped altogether, even though, at an estimated average cost of £25,000, bringing an empty home back into use takes a fraction of the cost of building a new home.

The major political parties have instead pledged to build new homes, with the Tories planning to use the estimated £1bn raised from council house sales to extend the right-to-buy scheme, with the aim of creating 400,000 extra homes over the next four years.

Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Ukip have all pledged to build at least 200,000 new homes a year.

But a survey of house builders by the estate agent Knight Frank revealed that just 9 per cent believe it was possible to build more than 200,000 homes a year.