THE tide is turning for an estate, community leaders told Hyndburn MP Greg Pope.

Huncoat Residents' Association invited Mr Pope to the Within Grove estate to show him recent progress in tackling crime, nuisance behaviour and empty housing.

An informal meeting hosted by association chairman Dave Parry allowed Mr Pope to speak to housing and regeneration chiefs, police, councillors and members of the Huncoat Community Forum about how the estate's image problem could be solved.

Residents told the MP there had been considerable improvements since his last visit 11 months ago with Home Secretary Jack Straw. Community leaders and police told Mr Pope how people living in the area had improved life in the area by helping the authorities deal with troublemakers and by drawing up an improvement action plan.

Crime in Huncoat from February to August has fallen by 11 per cent and juvenile nuisance has been cut by 60 per cent, compared to the same period last year.

Inspector Dave Whittle of Accrington police said: "We are getting a good response from people here.

"We do not now see Huncoat as a problem area. Our POPs (Problem Orientated Policing) strategy was used here to target specific problems and individuals. We will not become complacent, but we appear to have had some success." Since June, 26 empty council houses on the Within Grove estate have been let to new tenants.

Hyndburn Council's deputy regeneration director Ken Bury said there were still many empty homes, but housing chiefs were trying to make the estate more attractive to potential tenants.

He said: "The quality and size of the housing here is good and it is a rural area. People are renting little terraces in Accrington when they could live here in much better houses."

Mr Bury said boards would be removed from the empty houses and replaced with net curtains to help attract new tenants.

Mr Pope said he would push the Home Office to provide closed circuit television to stop nuisance behaviour outside shops on Within Grove and that he would talk to Hyndburn Council about the possibility of using the Government's new anti-social behaviour orders to tackle troublemakers.

Dave Parry said: "We are working closely with the police, the community forum and the council to turn things around."

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