It is a central tenet of the Government’s much-trumpeted Big Society that, it is claimed, will revolutionise house-building across the country.

The Localism Bill, set to become law later this year, will put decisions on where to build new homes – and how many – into the hands of communities on an ultra-local level, say ministers.

Campaigners fighting developers wishing to build hundreds of homes on green fields in places like Menston and Micklethwaite, Bingley, have taken heart from pronouncements on the new legislation.

They believe it will bolster their firepower against mighty national developers.

But critics in Bradford claim the new legislation will have little impact against a backdrop of a massive population increase – about 140,000 more people, who will need about 50,000 new homes.

“The Localism Bill will not make much difference at all to the house-building targets that we have got,” says Councillor the Reverend Paul Flowers, Bradford Council’s executive member for housing. “We have to work on the basis of trying to plan for the future, and the probability is that our city’s population is going to grow in line with the figures.

“They may need to be tweaked but I don’t believe the figures are substantially out.”

He adds: “We don’t want to be caught with our trousers down in 20 years’ time, when we have a huge population that we can’t house.”

The latest estimates by Government experts predict there will be high birth rates, because of the district’s youthful population.

This, coupled with 3,700 people per year coming to Bradford from other countries, will see the total population stand at 643,000 people by 2026. It stood at 501,400 in 2009.

They will all need jobs, places to shop, leisure centres and good transport links, as well as the often-quoted 50,000 homes to live in.

So how is this figure reached?

At present, the housing target for Bradford is set in the Regional Spatial Strategy for Yorkshire.

It dictated that 1,560 homes each year be built from 2004 to 2008, and 2,700 per year between 2008 and 2026 – a total of 60,240.

Only 8,903 homes were completed between April 2004 and March last year – leaving 51,337 still needed.

There is a belief the housing targets will be scrapped when the Localism Bill is made law, and ministers have told local councils to ignore them.

But a previous bid by former Bradford Council leader, Eric Pickles, now Communities Secretary, to abolish the targets, was met with a successful High Court legal challenge by a developer.

However, the Government has made it clear that, once the regional targets are removed, it will be up to councils to consult with local communities to decide how many homes should be built and where they should go.

Some local guidance was issued by the Government in July at the same time as it attempted to abolish housing targets.

Crucially, the Government has put out new guidance stating that the criteria for house-building remains the same.

Councillor Simon Cooke is sceptical about the 50,000 figure. “These targets make a lot of assumptions,” says the Bingley Rural Conservative councillor, who has worked for a housing consultancy.

“They are about predicting what housing is required, but it doesn’t take into account things like young people in shared living – that is just one example – and it also makes assumptions that a relationship break-up creates a new household. Fifteen years is a long way in the future for any predictions to be right.”

He says housing need should be decided on an ultra-local level, with developers joining in discussions with neighbourhood forums and Council officers.

Chancellor George Osborne, in the Budget, scrapped the national target for 60 per cent of all new homes to be built on brownfield land.

The move drew criticism from rural groups such as the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, which said it would put green fields “unnecessarily in the path of bulldozers.”

Bradford Council has outstripped the 60 per cent target over the last five years.

But Councillor Geoff Reid, the Lib Dem spokesman for housing, said that seemed set to change.

“At the moment it is quite clear that the Council is trying to spot every bit of brownfield land that it can,” he says. “But we have got a serious housing need in the district and there is no point being fundamentalist about greenfield sites.

“Somewhere it will have to come into the equation.”