MORE than 20 houses look set to be demolished after the land around them began to sink as soon as they were finished.

Owners of the homes in Finney Park Drive, Larches, say they have been told they will be compensated for their properties, which cost around £70,000 three years ago, and the estate will be knocked down.

The land has sunk so badly around some of them that steps have had to be built to give access to front doors, and garages are inaccessible to cars.

Residents say it has been a living nightmare, and their street is like a permanent building site.

At least four of the homes in the street have never been lived in, and now numbers 15-38 of the quiet cul-de-sac off Sutton Drive, are to be demolished.

Residents, who asked not to be named, say they do not know when their homes will be razed to the ground.

One woman said: "We found out last Thursday we are going to get the money for our houses, we are so relieved.

"The construction company said they are going to pay us what the houses would have been worth if there was nothing wrong with them.

"It has been a total nightmare. From the day we moved in we were told that we would have to move out for remedial work to be carried out, but that never happened.

"The problem is that the houses were built on peat, there's nothing wrong with the houses but the land around them has sunk."

The land on which the homes were built used to be the playing field of Sir Edmund Campion High School, which merged with St Cuthbert Mayne to become Our Lady's High School, Fulwood. The county council sold the field in 1993.

Planning permission was granted by Preston City Council for 43 homes to be built on the site in April 1999.

A spokesman for the council said: "It's not appropriate for us to comment at this stage."

Another resident added: "We moved in in November 2001 and our car has only been in the garage once since we moved in, it has been very stressful to say the least.

"The whole situation is disgusting, it's like living on a building site.

"But the construction company has been very good, coming to carry out work when it needs doing.

"But you don't expect this when you buy a new house."

The developers Aldbury Housing and the construction company Cruden Construction, based in Warrington, were not available for comment at the time of going to press.

Steve Connolly, director of Poole Dick Associates, the chartered quantity surveyors for the development, said: "Our service was quantity surveying and we have fulfilled our services now and are not involved in any of the pending situation.

"Our job was to monitor the financial progress of the project and that ended on completion years ago."