PEOPLE are hoping to use Government guidelines on regeneration schemes to save their homes from demolition.

Middlesbrough Council's executive was told yesterday that the council's overview and scrutiny board would not support a call from councillors to review a decision to demolish 1,500 terraced homes.

Eddie Johnson, of Gresham, Middlesbrough, has received a letter from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister saying the Government would "only indicate demolition where there is clear evidence that the type of housing is not the sort people want, or where the majority of homes are unfit or not decent and the cost of improving them would be unsustainable".

Mr Johnson said: "This is certainly not the case in Gresham, where we maintain our homes, which are up to standard for another 50 years. And they are sustainable - terraced houses being more ecologically friendly because other houses have more outside walls to let the heat out."

Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon has said that without radical action, Middlesbrough would become a ghost town because of population drift and first-time house buyers ignoring older terraced houses.

Residents are challenging council claims that up to 800 of the 1,500 houses marked for demolition are empty.