Work is underway on a North Staffordshire housing estate to try to find a solution to a national housing problem.

Thousands of precast concrete homes in the UK are blighted because defects make it virtually possible to get a mortgage or borrow money against the value of the property.

Now RENEW North Staffordshire together with partners Aspire Housing and Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, has bought a defective house at Galleys Bank, Kidsgrove, and are using it as a test-bed.

The Galleys Bank estate is largely made up of “Schindler” properties – precast reinforced concrete structures built by the National Coal Board as homes for miners.

Testing began on 34 Victoria Avenue in January 2010 and it is expected to take around a year to complete.

Hardial Bhogal, Director of RENEW North Staffordshire, said: “We are at the start of a long journey but I would like to reassure residents that the borough council and RENEW North Staffordshire are committed to finding a long-term solution for the estate.”

Neale Clifton, Executive Director for Regeneration and Development at Newcastle Borough Council, said the purpose of the work was to assess if there is a cost-effective way of bringing the property up to a standard where lenders would offer mortgages.

He explained: “This will then give an idea of how much it would cost to repair the properties before the project can be taken forward."

Once testing is complete, the property, which has been empty for two years, will be refurbished and brought back into use by Aspire Housing.

Galleys Bank is an estate of more than 400 houses. While some homes have already been improved, a total of 267 are still classified as defective which has caused many problems for the area.

Defined as “defective” under the Housing Act 1984, most lenders will not offer mortgages on precast concrete style homes.