A TROUBLED estate filled with empty properties and derelict land is to be revived into a new community.

Contour Housing Group are planning to carry out a £5.2million regeneration scheme with a scheme to build ‘affordable, high quality design’ homes on the Within Grove Estate, Huncoat after 10 years of decay at the site.

The application to erect 29 homes with a mixture of two, three and four bedroom houses on land, off Bolton Avenue and around the railway line is described by applicants as the result of five years’ community consultation.

The proposal will see 22 dilapidated properties replaced with 29 new properties in semi-detached and terraced lay outs.

It is part of a wider regeneration of approximately 100 boarded up properties across the whole estate, which has been plagued by crime over the years.

The new and regenerated homes are expected to managed by Contour and offered to tenants for ‘affordable rent’.

Huncoat councillor Dave Parkins said it was good news for the area as a whole.

He said: “Contour have showed me some designs, which look quite good. Anything would be an improvment on what is there right now.

“This time we will hopefully get it right and get the right people in. We need good houses and good public areas but we also need the right clientele. After Contour have spent so much, they will feel the same way.”

The plans follow the revamp by Lancashire County Council’s REMADE team of public areas on the estate and the creation of the Huncoat Greenway, a cycle route from the estate into Accrington.

In its application to Hyndburn Council, Contour Housing Association said it had spent many years working up to this proposal, as the public areas, and infrastructure required regeneration before a housing scheme could be put together.

The application states: “This large estate was in a state of decline prior to the initiatives started by Hyndburn Homes some five years ago.”