DAVID Cameron’s eye-catching plan to bring ‘Right to Buy’ to Bradford is an expensive gift to “the lucky few”, a housing chief has warned.

The proposal – to extend big discounts to buy their homes to 1.3 million housing association tenants – was sharply criticised by Yorkshire Housing, the county’s biggest association.

And ministers were pressed on whether the funding stream, from forcing councils to sell their expensive homes, would run dry in the North, where property values are much lower.

Currently, big discounts are only available to tenants in council homes, which excludes Bradford where the Council transferred its stock.

Unveiling the Conservative manifesto, the Prime Minister said: “We are the party of the working people offering you security at every stage of your life.

“We have drawn on all the resources of our nation to turn a great recession into a great recovery. The next five years are about turning the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family.”

The manifesto offered two other flagship new policies:

* A doubling of free childcare for three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week, to be funded from a squeeze on pension tax relief for the rich

* Legislation to ensure workers on the minimum wage pay no income tax – although only those who work for no more than 30 hours a week.

After criticism that the Tory campaign has been too negative, Mr Cameron struck a noticeably upbeat tone, referring no fewer than ten times to the “good life”.

However, most focus was on the Right to Buy extension – once rejected by Margaret Thatcher - which met with a barrage of criticism.

It will be funded by forcing local authorities to sell off properties that rank among the most expensive third of that type in their area – raising £4.5bn a year, the Tories said.

But it was unclear how the policy would work in Bradford, where the council does not have any expensive properties to sell.

And Mervyn Jones, chief executive of Yorkshire Housing, said: “This won’t help the thousands of people in private rented homes in our region desperate to buy, but who have no hope of doing so - or the many adult children living with their parents because they can’t afford to rent or buy.

“Effectively, taxpayers would be using their taxes to gift tens of thousands of pounds to someone already living in a good quality home and we say that is unfair.”

But Incommunities, which owns most social housing in Bradford after being established from the Council's housing stock transfer, refused to comment – insisting it would be “inappropriate as a non-political organisation”.

Councils will also be able to bid to a Brownfield Regeneration Fund, worth £1bn over five years, to clean up derelict land for housing.

Meanwhile, the Green Party is demanding an end to austerity and planning to create one million living wage jobs by raising public spending financed by big taxes on the rich.

Leader Natalie Bennett and the party's only MP Caroline Lucas called for a "peaceful political revolution" as they set out manifesto plans to create a "fair economy" run for the many and not the few.