THE number of affordable homes being built across Worcester has plunged 68 per cent, shock new figures have revealed.

A new city council report has revealed how just 40 new affordable homes were built in the first six months of the current 2016/17 financial year, between April and September.

The figure is a drastic slowdown - in the same six-month period last year it was 126.

Worcester MP Robin Walker has hit out at the city's Labour administration, calling the fall "abysmal" and "shocking".

But senior cabinet members have refuted his remarks, and say Government policy is making the drive to build new affordable homes tougher.

Of the latest six-month figure of 40, just five were completed in the three months between July and September this year.

Mr Walker said: "It is desperately disappointing that once again Labour are presiding over a fall in affordable housing delivery in Worcester.

"Centrally, the Government is investing more in house building and our economy is growing faster than any other major economy in the west, yet in Worcester Labour is overseeing a sharp slowdown."

He also called the council's stated target of overseeing the creation of just 100 new affordable homes for the entire 2016/17 year as "unambitious", particularly as in previous years it had reached a peak of 260, in 2014/15, before falling to 166 in 2015/16.

Mr Walker added: "It worries me that on the basis of the first half of the year, Labour’s delivery is as bad as it was when they last ran the council in 2013."

In the 2013/14 year the figure was 76.

Cllr Roger Berry, cabinet member for housing and heritage, said: "Mr Walker as usual is being very disingenuous.

"The Government has this 'proud' record of overseeing the lowest numbers of social housing in history, and Worcester mirrors that.

"As Robin knows, it can take 12 to 18 months before any houses can come on stream after planning permission is awarded."

The city council says a move by the Homes and Communities Agency to offer time-limited grant funding for new affordable properties in 2015 helped boost the market last year.