MORE than £11million could be spent on giving first-time buyers and struggling families a helping hand onto the housing ladder.

Council chiefs have applied to the Government for £5.6million to fund a programme, which will see a fresh lease of life given to 515 empty properties and vacant corner shops across East Lancashire.

A separate scheme will see £6million of new affordable home building take place after a successful funding bid by the area’s biggest social landlord.

The empty homes scheme will see a fresh lease of life given to; 141 rundown properties in Pendle; 102 in Rossendale; 68 in Burnley; 141 in Blackburn with Darwen and 45 in Hyndburn.

The work is likely to focus on the Daneshouse and Accrington Road areas of Burnley; Whitefield area of Nelson; New Line area of Bacup; and Spring Hill area of Accrington.

Town hall bosses and an MP welcomed the proposals, which they said would aid the ongoing regeneration of East Lancashire.

But a Labour MP said it would only go a small way towards filling the void left when East Lancashire’s £45million housing market renewal programme was axed last year.

An initial £100million funding through the Homes and Communities Agency has been released by Whitehall for the works but an extra £50million is expected to be doled out for areas of low-housing demand.

Housing officials from Rossendale Council are leading the consortium behind the bid.

Regeneration chief Steve Jackson said: “The funding available through this initiative can be used to bring empty homes and other types of property, including commercial property, into use as affordable housing.”

The knock-on benefit for East Lancashire could be an improvement in the low levels of New Homes Bonus currently being received.

Coun Andrew MacNae, the valley’s regeneration cabinet member, added: “We need to get vacant properties back into use and making an economic gain for the area.”

Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said: “We have demolished a lot of empty homes over the past few years.

“But we are also building a lot of new ones as well. We have probably built more than anywhere else in Lancashire and the country.

“In the Daneshouse and Accrington Road areas we are building hundreds of affordable homes.

“So we are doing well at building new homes, but a lot of people do not want to live in new homes and would prefer to live in refurbished terrace properties, which can be very nice.

“Any money the Government gives us to refurbish empty homes is obviously welcome.

“In Burnley we are proud of what we have done and what we are doing and any money would help us to continue with our good work.”

Supporters of the bid will find out from the HCA on March 16 if they have been successful. Work could begin as early as April.

Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn, said: “We were receiving around £8.5m each year through the housing market renewal scheme, so obviously £6m across the whole patch as a one-off payment is substantially less than that.”

Meanwhile bosses at Together Housing, which oversees Twin Valley, Housing Pendle and Green Vale, have revealed that three boroughs will share in a £15million windfall from the Homes and Communities Agency.

The largest allocation, £4.08million, will be for Twin Valley, to provide 116 homes to rent and another 56 to come under shared ownership, providing family homes and supported lodgings.

Another 51 lease properties have been earmarked for Nelson, Colne and West Craven under a £1.22million allocation for Housing Pendle.

And 20 homes to rent and six shared ownership properties will be built by Green Vale in the Rossendale valley as part of a £624,000 scheme.

Hilary Brady, the group’s development head, said: “We are delighted to be able to work in partnership with the Homes and Communities Agency and continue our good work in providing new affordable homes across the region.”

Other partners in the housing group, which also covers Yorkshire and Humberside, will share the remaining £9million.

Work on the homes, which has already started, will be completed by March 2016, according to the housing group.