MEMBERS of a House of Commons Select Committee saw first hand the extent of Burnley's housing problem during a tour of the town's poorest areas.

They were on a fact finding mission, touring some of England's worst affected areas, for a report to be submitted to Parliament at a later date.

Committee members were shown the reality of Burnley's housing crisis and told seven per cent of local authority stock in Burnley is empty, 21 per cent of local authority stock is listed as 'difficult to let', over 60 per cent of that stock is over 80 years old, 22 per cent of all dwellings in East Lancashire are deemed unfit and Burnley has over 3,500 empty homes.

Andrew Bennett MP for Denton and Reddish is chairman of the committee.

He said: "Empty homes are a problem across the country, but the causes and the solutions vary from region to region.

"I am delighted to be bringing the committee to the north-west to allow members to see for themselves the difficulties facing local people, when there is an empty house next door. Problems caused by empty houses, such as negative equity, crime, neighbour nuisance and poor quality housing make the biggest difference to people's satisfaction with the areas in which they live."

Mr Bennett also said that landlords who let to tenants without vetting them as being suitable were "neglecting" the neighbourhoods they were buying into. We also hope to see some good practice where the relevant agencies have come together to tackle the problems and regenerate areas", he added. Peter Pike MP for Burnley was also on the tour. He said: "This committee can't force the Government to do anything, but they can persuade. The Government is moving in the right direction. We have got to get the worst properties cleared and get somewhere near to parity with supply and demand of housing."

Mr Pike wants a decision on which properties are to be cleared to be made as quickly as possible and has already raised the issue in the House of Commons.

After a presentation given by Burnley Borough Council's Regeneration Committee and David Riley, chairman of the East Lancashire Housing Forum, Mr Riley said: "We are not just here to whinge we need to follow some very challenging targets and reduce the amount of unfit housing in the borough by a half by the year 2015."

The visit came less than a month after Housing Minister, Lord Falconer visited East Lancashire as part of the Government's Neighbourhood Renewal programme.

During a stop at Burnley Wood, the Committee were confronted by David Tierney, a member of the Burnley Wood Community Group. He said: "We need action now because two or three years down the line it is going to be lot worse.

Mr Tierney compared the problem of bad housing to a "cancer" and said that the problem had to be treated quickly before it spread.

He said that help was needed to prevent bad landlords putting in equally bad tenants, that drug pushers were making life hell for the people who live in the area and that owner occupiers needed help to escape a negative equity trap.

The committee also visited Liverpool, Sefton, Rochdale and Manchester yesterday and will tour some of the districts of London. Outside of London, East Lancashire has the highest concentration of housing built pre-1918.