RESIDENTS hope to present their own small-scale DIY solutions to homes planned for demolition.

The suggestion has been prompted after Middlesbrough Council was forced to shelve plans to flatten 1,500 town centre terraced homes because of a lack of money.

Hazel Blears, the new Minister for the Department for Communities and Local Government, supports the idea of a citizen participation agency, giving people more control of affairs in their own communities.

The idea of local community partnerships, comprising residents, councillors and developers, is already being piloted in Liverpool to deal with regeneration issues.

Ashley Marron, a spokesman for the Middlesbrough group Communities Under Threat, said it was hoped that some of the threatened homes could be renovated and modernised, rather than be demolished.

He said: "At the end of the day, this is about people's homes.

"There are people who have lived all their lives and want to stay there.

"We have to find a solution to this. I do not think there is one simple panacea; but this is one idea we can try.

"There is no reason why, on a smaller scale, we could not do something with a single terrace. It is part of a package of solutions."

Mr Marron said there were a variety of ways of raising finance to make such a scheme possible.

He said: "If they (the council) cannot do anything with houses after so many months, we should have the right as a community to buy, instead of sitting under a blight. I think it is one of the ways forward."

Mr Marron said Middlesbrough Council has so far spent £3.6m on buying 75 houses for demolition in the Gresham area, only five per cent of the clearance target.

Councillor David Budd, the council's executive member for regeneration, said: "The council is always ready to listen to residents who want to make a constructive contribution to our regeneration plans.

"We have already given facelifts to more than 260 houses and we are making decent homes grants available to owner-occupiers as part of those plans.

"We are working with residents. The aim is to make these neighbourhoods places where people will want to come and live and put down roots."

He said that if Mr Marron wanted to put forward constructive proposals to help the council renew neighbourhoods, the council would listen.