A £95 million scheme to improve housing in the poorest neighbourhoods of the West Midlands has demolished more homes than it has built, Ministers have revealed.
The Sandwell and Birmingham Pathfinder Project is supposed to provide high-quality and low-cost housing in areas which have been blighted by poor housing in the past.
But in the past four years it has demolished 525 houses properties in the West Midlands while only 191 were built.
The scheme, which covers Sandwell, Handsworth, Winson Green, Lozells, New-town and Aston, is named Urban Living.
It has a budget of £95 million between 2002 and 2008.
Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, the Shadow Minister for Birmingham, condemned the body's performance as "totally unacceptable ".
However, a spokesman for Urban Living said the scheme had to buy land and demolish existing properties before it could build new ones.
The Government introduced nine Pathfinder schemes in 2002 to tackle the problems of neighbourhoods with very low housing demand.
The affected areas, mostly in the north of England, typically contained large numbers of derelict properties.
Mr Mitchell's comments followed criticism of Pathfinder schemes by the Audit Commission, the national spending watchdog.
It found that low demand for housing was now less severe in the Pathfinder neighbourhoods, which have narrowed the house-price gap with surrounding areas.
But in a recent report, it said it was "not possible to identify a causal link" between the Pathfinder activities and these changes in the housing market, which may be due to other factors such as the influx of workers from eastern Europe moving into cheap housing in run-down neighbourhoods.
There was also concern that in some areas, the Pathfinders tried to press ahead with demolition projects before engaging sufficiently with local people to explain their plans.
Figures published by Local Government Minister Iain Wright revealed that 11,276 properties have been demolished nationwide while 3,697 new ones have been built.
Mr Mitchell said: "It is totally unacceptable that three times as many properties in Birmingham have been demolished than built under Labour's Pathfinder scheme.
"How is this providing the radical and sustained action that people in these communities were promised?
"The people of West Bromwich, Aston, Lozells and Handsworth are once again being let down by a Government who are failing to deliver the change required."
But a spokeswoman for Urban Living said: "This is a long-term programme set to last 10 to 15 years. In order to create large sites to build more homes, we need to acquire land with poor housing."
