Scores of tired-looking homes in Newcastle Borough are due to receive a million pound makeover.

Around 90 homes in Church Street, Silverdale, and Congleton Road, Butt Lane, have been earmarked for improvements as part of Newcastle Borough Council’s latest group repair scheme.

The borough council will spend £1 million it has received from the Regional Housing Board on cleaning, repairing and replacing windows and doors, brickwork, guttering and other external features.

Councillor Robin Studd, the authority's cabinet member for regeneration and planning, said the planned repair schemes would complement the work being carried out by RENEW North Staffordshire in areas such as Silverdale.

He said: “These areas need a facelift, but are outside RENEW’s areas of major intervention (AMI). Butt Lane is very important as a gateway into the borough, but it has seen better days, and not much has been spent on it in the past.”

Last year (2008) RENEW and the borough council spent £1.3 million on restoring the facades of 70 Victorian terrace homes in Knutton.

Around £700,000 will now be spent on improving 65 homes in Church Street, Silverdale, while £300,000 has been set aside for 23 properties in Butt Lane.

Residents in the two areas welcomed the decision to carry out the repairs.

Richard Forrester, aged 38, of Church Street, Silverdale, said: “It’s about time they did something like this in Church Street. I think most people here would like something doing with their homes, but they just don’t have the money to do it.

“I’ve seen what they’ve done with the houses in Knutton and so it will be good to see that being done here as well.

“These houses have been here for centuries it seems. A lot of have roofs that are caving in, and most of my neighbours have leaks.”

While the Church Street houses all lie within the Renew area in Silverdale – but outside the AMI – the Butt Lane properties are beyond the housing renewal pathfinder’s boundaries.

Householders living outside the Renew area had previously been means tested for group repairs, meaning they could have been asked to pay up to 25 per cent of the work’s cost.

But the borough council has decided to provide 100 per cent grant assistance for all the repair work, in order to encourage as many people as possible to take up the offer.

Mary Maxfield, cabinet member and Kidsgrove ward councillor, said it was important that Butt Lane was included in this group repair scheme.

She said: “I’m really pleased that at last Butt Lane is getting some consideration. Residents used to say that nothing was ever spent in Butt Lane, but in the last 12 months we’ve seen major work done in Cedar Avenue, with the Safer Routes to School Scheme, and now we’ll have this repair work being done in Congleton Road.

“I think the residents in Butt Lane will no longer feel that they have been forgotten.”