RESIDENTS are furious after it was revealed that a multi-million pound project to re-vamp a Blackburn housing estate will be left half finished for years.

Tenants and home owners on Blackburn's Ashworth Street estate today branded regeneration chiefs as "barmy" after funding for the second phase of the two-stage improvement plan was frozen.

Now residents say that because of the council's decision, the estate will be split in two half of it regenerated and half of it simply "left to rot."

But Blackburn with Darwen Council bosses said that their £27.5million budget for housing market renewal which they received after bidding to housing renewal body Elevate must be spent elsewhere in the borough.

That is despite around £4.5 million being designated to phase one of the Ashworth Street Estate redevelopment.

They said that the borough's programme of housing market renewal would take 15 years and that phase two would go ahead at some point just not this May as was first planned.

Elevate said it had a duty to prioritise private sector renewal and phase two may have to be funded by other sources, including Twin Valley Homes, as it owns the majority of the property on the estate.

Today, Blackburn MP Jack Straw warned that the whole project to improve the area would be undermined if only half of it was completed and vowed to ask Elevate bosses to increase Blackburn with Darwen's funding to allow their plans to go ahead.

Mr Straw said: "I completely understand resident's concerns and can see how the overall effect of the work which has been carried out in the area could be undermined if the whole project is not completed."

Residents said they felt as if they had been misled after seeing "superb" plans for phase two and said it was "ludicrous" not to complete the whole estate.

Resident Peter Newton, of Ashworth Close, said: "This estate has been neglected for 37 years and has had no real investment of any kind.

"If you are going to leave half of it untouched then it is only going to drag down the other half and this money will have just been wasted.

"We have been promised this and after seeing the plans for the whole estate were very much looking forward to the place being overhauled and improved.

"It would solve a lot of our anti-social problems and help the police as the plans show that they were getting rid of all the alleyways and making the place more open and more respectable."

Eddie Duxbury, of Arthur Way, added: "It is now in danger of becoming a sink area surrounded by new build.

"People now want to know how a so-called intelligent council can leave half the estate to rot?"

Most of the homes in the Ashworth Street Estate are owned by Twin Valley Homes, who Coun Mohammed Khan, executive member for housing and neighbourhoods, said they would support in delivering improvements to the Ashworth Street Estate.

Twin Valleys have said they are committed to carrying out internal house refurbishment in all their homes despite the phase two plans for external work and redevelopment of the estate's infrastructure being shelved.

A joint statement issued by the council and Twin Valley Homes said:"We are committed to the future redevelopment of the Ashworth Estate and we are both working to find joint solutions to this. If necessary we will be submitting further bids for additional funding."