PEOPLE fighting to keep their homes have produced their own blueprint - advocating selective demolition.

More than 1,000 terrace houses are to be flattened at South Bank in a plan Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council claims will give the town new houses, a district shopping centre and a greener look, with open spaces and woods.

Embattled residents have drawn up their own map, showing where houses should come down, and have submitted it to the local authority.

Redcar and Cleveland council has undertaken to give residents its response after the New Year holiday.

Eunice Smith, a leader of the Start Anew South Bank campaign, explained: "We recognise there will have to be some demolition, but rather than have us all wiped out, we want to save as many good houses as possible.

"We are just hoping something will come of it. We are prepared to get involved with this, and come up with ideas, and not just sit back and shout for the sake of shouting.''

Council officials told a packed public meeting in the summer that the community's future could only be secured if it was transplanted to another site and rebuilt there; that investors were not interested in rebuilding directly on the site of cleared streets.

Mrs Smith said: "Our lives are on hold, everything is in abeyance.

"We have put our own map in to the council and they are going to look at it and see if it is feasible. We are hoping that once they all get back from the holiday we will hear something.''

The houses campaigners suggest should be demolished are those which are already empty, and have been for years.