A SEMI-DERELICT estate is to be demolished in a £2.7m scheme.

Plans are being drawn up to clear about 200 homes in the area around Evans Street, in Grangetown, Middlesbrough.

But Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, which approved the plan yesterday, was told the next problem would be the cost of re-housing residents.

The authority estimated that it would take three years to complete the demolition. Officers have conducted door-to-door interviews with residents and say the majority of people in the area approve of the plan. However, the market value of the properties in the streets around Evans Street is much less than that of similar properties elsewhere. Some owners have found it impossible to sell their homes, even at asking prices of less than £10,000, and have abandoned them, while similar homes in the neighbouring Eston area sell for up to £50,000.

Joan Rees, the council's director of development, spoke yesterday at the authority's executive committee. She said: "Further detailed work is ongoing to more accurately assess price differentials. There are clearly going to be cases where residents who currently have no housing costs will be unable to fund the purchase of an alternative property without intervention by the council."

Les Earl, a home-owner in the area and vice-chairman of the Grangetown Residents Association, said he had fought the plan. However, when a £250,000 investment on Burnsville Road failed to improve the area, he and others had a change of mind.

He said: "Half of these derelict homes are rat infested or full of drug addicts and nothing seems to be able to change that. As long as the people here can be moved with some dignity, I have come round to it. There are some truly brilliant people here and they deserve to have some quality of life.

"I have lived in Grangetown for 37 years and really want to stay.

"I would say the decline began in the early 1980s, but it crept up on us and then it was too late."

The council is applying to the Government for special dispensation to allow it to pay some money towards the cost of residents' new homes