RESIDENTS are being offered a say in their neighbourhoods' future - despite plans to demolish hundreds of homes.

Their input is needed to draw up planning blueprints designed to ensure sustainable communities, claims Middlesbrough Council.

The local authority plans to bulldoze 1,500 terraced homes, mainly in the Gresham and Middlehaven (St Hilda's) areas, modernise another 6,000 and build 750 homes.

And it is Gresham and Middlehaven which will be the focus of the first neighbourhood blueprint, to be launched in the New Year.

Councillor David Budd, executive member for regeneration with Middlesbrough Council, says residents now have a chance to help decide the shape of the new neighbourhoods.

Devastated Gresham ward residents, where 38 streets are to be flattened, have appealed to Prime Minister Tony Blair and his deputy John Prescott to stop the demolition and complained to the local government ombudsman.

Coun Budd said: "The key aim of all our activity is to stabilise the housing market in these areas.

"At the moment, it shows every sign of failure, with worrying numbers of empty properties and more and more people buying to rent out houses rather than live in them.

"We believe these plans will turn the area around and make them safer and more sustainable communities where people will want to put down roots."

The plans will look at each area in detail, including links with other parts of town, the number and types of houses to be built, the role of local businesses, open spaces, community safety and transport.

Gresham resident Eddie Johnson, who lives in a street earmarked for demolition, said: "For the past nine months, we have been living under a horrendous planning blight.

"We have not been able to participate in a free housing market since the council's shock announcement that the council was going to knock down 1,500 homes in a one square mile area, when only 10,000 houses were coming down across the northern region, according to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister."

He addded: "There is only one buyer for properties in a clearance area and that is the council.

"It almost sounds as though the council is going back to square one."

Gresham ward councillor Ken Walker said: "I welcome the belated U-turn by Coucillor Budd acknowledging that consultation must come first.

"I would, however, remind him and the mayor that more than 3,000 local residents have already made it quite clear their homes are not available for unnecessary and unneeded demolition by Middlesbrough council executive.

"The question that should be answered, if the executive persists with its determination to destroy a whole community is this: Are they prepared to provide realistic funding for the 1,500 homes they wish to destroy?

"If so, will Coun Budd and the mayor acknowledge that an average of £100,000 will be necessary to compensate home owners for the loss of their property and to provide quality alternative accommodation?''