Modular housebuilder Project Etopia has called on the government to scrap the powers that enable local authorities to take over empty homes, after it discovered their use has collapsed.

Through a freedom of information request the firm discovered the use of empty dwelling management orders (EDMOs) to seize vacant properties fell to just six last year.

Introduced in 2006, even at their peak in 2012 only 41 EDMOs were issued, despite hundreds of thousands of homes lying vacant across the country.