Landlord up in arms over empty houses
5:00pm Thursday 11th March 2010 in News
A BOLTON landlord has claimed the council is allowing properties in one of the borough’s most deprived areas to fall into a state of disrepair so they can force him to sell for less.
Ali Tetik, who first bought a house in Union Road, Tonge Moor, in 1988, says Bolton Council has been promising him for months that tenants were being sought for the homes on either side of his.
He says he is frustrated that nothing has happened, despite the council owning one of the properties since last March and using the other as emergency accommodation once in the last three years.
He said: “I keep calling them and they tell me that they are about to put tenants in there. But still nothing has been done. It is driving down the value of my property and when they (Bolton Council) come to compulsorily purchase it they will get a surveyor in and he will say it is worth very little.
“The council does not need to spend that much money to bring these properties back to a habitable standard.
“They have had someone in one of the properties previously so it can’t have been that bad.
“Leaving them is just bringing the area down and that is not fair. I could get people in those houses if they were mine so I cannot see why the council can’t.”
Bolton Council said work had been carried out on the properties and that it hopes they would soon be let.
A spokesman said: “We are sympathetic to Mr Tetik’s concerns and we are committed to working with all the residents in the Union Road area as much as we can.
“We hope we will be in a position soon when we can bring some of the empty properties in the Union Road area back into use, subject to some legal work.”
Last year, Bolton Council passed plans to demolish 78 properties in Yates Street and Union Road —including Mr Tetik’s —and refurbish 17 properties in neighbouring Tonge Moor Road.
It is part of a £4.25 million scheme to transform the area, which is one of the most run-down areas of the borough.
