AN UNPOPULAR part of a Leigh council housing estate may be sold.

Residents are being asked for their views on the idea to sell-off homes in the Melrose Avenue and Whalley Grove areas, where there are few takers for tenancies.

Around one fifth of homes in the area are unoccupied, with doors and windows shuttered to keep out vandals who are turning it into a 'hell hole'.

Residents told how one house in Melrose Avenue has been empty for nearly two years.

Director of Housing Peter Gee has told tenants they are pondering on the "unpopularity and lack of demand for accommodation in the Melrose Avenue and Whalley Grove areas".

But the Council strenuously denied Whalley Grove resident Sister Josefa's suggestion the estate was being purposely run down.

After receiving a circular from the Council she said: "I think there is an ongoing plan to move people on to the estate who aren't welcome anywhere else. When it gets a bad reputation it clears the way for a sell-off."

She is one of 11 people who own their own homes in the two streets.

A Council spokesman said: "We absolutely reject suggestions that we deliberately put problem tenants on estates to engineer a sell-off. We get comments like this

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from every area of the borough. We have a duty to rehouse people.

"We haven't consulted people in some streets on the Abbey Lane estate because there are no proposals to sell homes elsewhere."

If the sale goes ahead homes could be refurbished and the area redeveloped as has happened on parts of Hag Fold, Plank Lane and Higher Fold housing estates.

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