AROUND £44million will be spent over the next two years to help re-invigorate the housing market in Blackburn and Darwen.

Housing chiefs at Blackburn with Darwen Coucnil have announced where they plan to spend the cash.

And although they could not give an exact breakdown of how much money would be spent in each area, Darwen followed by Infirmary will be getting the lion's share of the cash.

It forms part of the government's Housing Market Renewal scheme that is overseen in the area by Elevate East Lancashire, a 15-year programme to diversify and improve value in the area's housing market.

An equity loan scheme that was piloted for people whose homes in Redearth Road, Darwen, were being knocked down will be rolled out for everyone losing their house.

Initially the loan scheme made £50,000 available to help with the purchase of a new home, but the council has deemed it too generous as it enabled people to move higher up the property market. The upper limit will now be set at £35,000.

Today, Darwen Coun Roy Davies said making £50,000 available had set a precendent and the council should stick to it.

He said even if meant that homeowners were able upgrade to a better type property it was not unreasonable.

"These people are being uprooted from their homes.

"More people may benefit from the system now, but not getting as good a house as they had already."

The £44.7million being invested is made up of £27.5million from Elevate, £10.9million from the Housing Corporation and £6.8million from the government's housing improvement programme.

Coun Mohammed Khan, executive member for housing a neighbourhoods, said: "It's a huge amount of money that will be spent.

"I think people expect things to happen overnight, but this is a 10 to 15 year programme."

He said that borough's 27,700 properties would benefit from the programme, and that for every one home knocked down three were improved.

The council estimates that the £35million spent between March 2004 and March 2006 on the housing market renewal programme, saw the injection of £80million of private investment in housing during the same period.

Chiefs said that the ratio of £2.3 to every £1 of public money spent proved that the programme was already having a positive effect.

Coun Colin Rigby, leader of the Conservative opposition, welcomed the extension of the equity loan scheme.

"The bottom line is that if it allows more people to upgrade properties then I have no problem with that," he added.

"We are talking about people living in some of the worst properties in the area."