BURNLEY MP Peter Pike and council leader Stuart Caddy have united in a call for the widespread bulldozing of derelict houses in the town.

They will tell members of the Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee when they visit the town on Monday that £30million is needed to solve Burnley's empty houses crisis.

Minister of Housing Lord Falconer, who toured Nelson and Rossendale to see their problems last month, is also expected in the town on Friday to see for himself the reality of streets of empty, boarded up and vandalised houses.

He has already announced a series of measures, including laws to tackle bad landlords and tenants, since his trip.

Coun Caddy said The National Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, a government body set up to look into all issues with regard to neighbourhood renewal strategies including housing and regeneration, will also spend much of Friday in Burnley.

He added: "This will be no flying visit and this body feeds straight into the government which is good for us.

"At last people are sitting up and taking notice that Burnley has a major problem which we cannot tackle on our own.

"We need about £30million to start looking at a demolition programme, to knock down the houses and deal with the sites."

As part of its on-going inquiry into empty houses the government committee will visit various areas of the North west on Monday and Tuesday.

They are expected to spend about two hours in Monday in the afternoon looking at the problem. The programme has not yet been released but Burnley Wood and parts of the Daneshouse area are likely to top the agenda of areas to be visited.

Problems of deprivation and collapse of the bottom end of the housing market where terrace houses have been sold for as little as £2,000 have been identified as one of the areas being investigated by the Task force set up to investigate the causes of the racial disturbances in Burnley in the summer.

Task Force chairman Lord Clarke told a public meeting in Padiham this week that he had been amazed at the housing situation in the town.

He sympathised with people who had invested in homes in areas which had become run down and said there was no way he would live in Burnley Wood or Daneshouse.

Burnley has 3,500 empty houses. many of them boarded up or bricked up.

The town's MP Peter Pike has called for them to be knocked down.

He said: "I welcome the fact that committee members are coming to Burnley on Monday and I have been asked to change my diary because Lord Falconer will be visiting the town on Friday.

"Whether it is a Commons Committee or Minister we have to keep up the pressure. Millions of pounds more money needs to be spent in Burnley to get on top of the problem.

"When Lord Falconer visited East Lancashire recently he was talking in terms of a 10-year programme.

"We have a problem which needs to be tackled in the short term and in the longer term. There is a problem of dereliction which results in vandalism and which together has destroyed the whole lower end of the housing market.

"When a house becomes empty on a street people begin to get worried about what will happen. We have to reduce the number of houses in Burnley to something nearer to the demand for properties.

"There is a recognition that fewer and fewer people want terrace houses particularly in certain areas. There has to be large scale clearance."