EMPTY houses that are blighting communities in Hull will be given a £3.5 million makeover.
Hull City Council has listed the city streets that will benefit from the funding – part of the Government’s Clusters of Empty Homes programme.
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Councillor John Black outside rundown houses in Airlie Street, west Hull
The £3,589,968 award given to the council by the Home and Communities Agency (HCA) was the fifth highest award of money from a pot of £60 million.
It will target some of the worst concentrations of empty homes in the Boulevard, Wellsted Street and New Bridge Road areas of Hull.
Councillor John Black, portfolio holder for strategic and operational housing, said: “This is good news for the city, particularly since regeneration budgets were cut nationally over recent months.
“It’s pleasing to know we can start to regenerate areas that are particularly in need and help the many hundreds of people who are on the council’s waiting list.”
The £3.5 million award brings the total of the council’s empty homes programme to £4.7 million, after it successfully secured £1.2 million to revamp houses in west Hull earlier this year.
Cllr Black said: “Through this investment we aim to give local labour opportunities to people, along with increasing investment in the areas that will be improved.”
Hull currently has more than 6,000 empty homes, the majority of which are owned by the private sector.
Lisa Sargeant, 40, has lived in Carrington Street, west Hull, for the past eight years.
Like many streets in the Boulevard area, it is peppered with empty properties.
She said: “I was told my house would be coming down, then it changed and it was going to be done up. Then the money ran out.
“I’m not sure what is happening now. A lot of the small courts around here should be demolished because they are full of empty houses. No one is ever going to live down them any more.
“Something needs doing because the whole area looks a right mess.”
The £60 million pot of cash was awarded to 20 bidders across England. Funding was only available for areas with houses that had been empty for a long time.
David Curtis, executive director at the HCA, said: “The £3.5 million funding for Hull City Council will bring about 145 empty homes back into productive use.
“It will also provide more new affordable homes for those on housing waiting lists and help to remove the blight of dereliction in local communities, as a part of the wider housing strategy our partners are delivering in Hull.”
The funding will also work alongside other projects such as the Community Energy Savings Project to provide energy improvements to 200 homes in the Boulevard area.