A HOUSE bought by the council for almost half a million pounds is up for sale again after it was deemed unsuitable.

Bury Council bought a five-bedroom house in Fairfield around two years ago for £480,000 intending to use it as a residential respite home for vulnerable adolescents.

At the time neighbours expressed concerns about the use of the house in Bridgefield Drive.

The council spent £9,000 on the house, adding carpets and new fittings but never went on to register the property with Ofsted.

The house is now up for sale with an asking price of £499,950 and is currently under offer.

Karen Dolton, Bury Council's acting executive director for children and young people, joined the authority in February 2017.

She said: "Through my engagement with the local community it seemed obvious there was quite a lot of concern from residents.

"[The decision to sell] was really in response to local residents concerns about having such a service on the estate."

Ms Dolton could not comment on why the purchase had gone ahead when residents concerns were known about at the time as she had not been working at the council.

The house was going to be used as an adolescent support unit, Ms Dolton explained this type of service is 'tried and tested' in other authorities.

The service has two parts, an outreach team, which works with families and a residential aspect where children can stay over for two or three nights respite.

This was the plan for the Bridgefield Drive house.

Ms Dolton stressed that the house had never been used for respite and the outreach team had been using it as a base in the community.

She said: "Bury Council did purchase Bridgefield Mews and did substantial work on it to prepare it for the intended plan to develop it into an adolescent support unit.

"However, after further feasibility testing and local community engagement the decision was taken not to pursue this.

"So, no application was ever made to Ofsted as it was deemed unsuitable for the young people, mainly down to its location which had unsuitable transport links for the young people and the area wasn’t ideal for young people.

"As a result the decision was taken to sell it and it is currently under offer."

A spokesperson for Ofsted confirmed it had never been approached by Bury Council about the Bridgefield Drive house.

The outreach team is still at work in the borough but no residential home is currently being used and Ms Dolton said the council was exploring different options.

She said: "We are deciding the best approach and actively looking to see what approach we want to use as there's more than one way to do things."