Nearly 200,000 new affordable homes have been delivered in England since April 2010 which Housing Minister Kris Hopkins has declared as success story.

The new figures also show that were 41,654 affordable homes started in the year to March 2014, some 15% higher than the previous year.

In addition 125,000 of the 170,000 homes planned through the Affordable Homes programme, in which the government is investing £19.5 billion public and private funding, have now been delivered.

Hopkins said that it means that since April 2010, 197,792 new affordable homes have been delivered. Overall, the government has delivered 445,000 new homes since April 2010. In contrast, between 1997 and 2010 the number of social housing homes dropped by 420,000.

‘Our affordable house building efforts are a clear success story, with nearly 200,000 new affordable homes delivered since April 2010. It means families from Newcastle to Newquay have new homes available to them, whether to rent at an affordable rate or to buy through our shared ownership schemes,’ said Hopkins.

‘And this is on top of the wider efforts we’re making, which means house building is now at its highest level since 2007,’ he added.

The Affordable Homes programme includes social rented homes, affordable rented homes and affordable home ownership schemes, and is a key part of the government’s long term economic plan. And with every new home supporting a job this multi-billion pound programme is helping get people back into work.

Areas that have seen some of the biggest numbers of affordable homes delivered since April 2010 include Birmingham with 2,740, Cornwall at 2,690, Wiltshire 2,620, Leeds 1,910, Bristol 1,830 and Manchester 1,810.

The data also shows that a fifth of the affordable homes built last year, and a quarter of the total since 2010, were built in London.