Almost 30 homes in Dudley look set to be bulldozed and rebuilt in a £1million scheme.

Many of the council-owned homes in Orchard Street have become unsafe.

Housing bosses say renovation is too expensive but hope to team up with a private construction firm to finance a mixture of rebuilt private and social housing, in a deal similar to one that will see 270 homes on the North Priory estate flattened.

It had been estimated it would cost the council £40,000 to bring each of the dilapidated buildings up to standard, amounting to a potential bill to taxpayers of £1.2million.

Housing boss Councillor Michael Evans said: “It is just not possible to justify that level of spending. If you have a site where you need far too much money to bring it up to standard, what you do is go into partnership with a private firm. They pay for a variety of different homes to be built, a proportion of which will be social and affordable housing. It’s the only way councils can get housing built nowadays.”

He assured any tenants living in the homes affected that they would be rehoused if and when required.

Plans to revamp Orchard Street will go before Dudley Council cabinet bosses for approval at a meeting in October. Ten houses in Orchard Street have already been demolished over the past five years because they had become so rundown, but a further 29 homes are in need of significant repair.