RELIGIOUS leaders have united to accuse a council of deliberately neglecting a housing estate.

Four clergymen working on Stockton's Hardwick Estate argue that council plans to bulldoze 500 houses are unnecessary.

They add that decent houses have been left derelict even though people wished to move into them.

Stockton Borough Council intends to demolish the centre of the estate as part of a £1.3m regeneration plan. Other houses would be refurbished and new homes built.

But in a joint letter sent to the council, Father Laurence Jones and Reverends Trevor Haigh, David Stephenson and Damon Bage, are objecting to the plan.

They said: "If there has been deterioration of the housing on Hardwick it is because Stockton Borough Council has deliberately allowed it to happen. The council have neglected Hardwick for the last ten years. During this time they must owe Hardwick millions of pounds worth of renovation.

"People who have wanted to move onto the estate have been deliberately deterred by the council."

A spokesperson for Stockton Council said: "The council has not neglected Hardwick but there has been a considerable drop in demand for properties in some areas of the estate. We have not allowed properties to remain empty but despite all attempts to let around 15 per cent of properties in this area of Hardwick remain empty because they were unpopular and undesirable."