BURNLEY Council is through to the second stage of a funding bid to the Homes and Communities Agency.

The programme, entitled ‘Clusters of Empty Homes’, has funding of £50 million to help local authorities bring large areas of empty homes back into use.

Burnley has been successful in its expression of interest last month, and has been invited to take part in the formal bidding process.

Mike Cook, director of economic regeneration for Burnley Council, said: “This is excellent news, and the result of a lot of hard work from both Burnley Council and our partners.

“One of our biggest challenges as a town is the volume of empty properties we have, and this funding will help us address the problem.”