A dozen homes in Spring Valley will be used to determine how best to treat the rest of the housing estate.

Douglas Council has agreed to progress with stage one of the scheme, which has been planned for a number of years.

The first phase, costing £1.63m, will see the 12 semi-detached properties on Groves Road and Springfield Avenue used to provide what the council’s housing committee called ’essential information’ for the project design team to enable it to make a recommendation on the best procurement route for future works.

The primary purpose of the scheme is to replace defective lintels and window sills which have deteriorated, according to the council’s housing committee, to the point of presenting ’safety and structural concerns’.

As such, the project will include a new external insulation and render system which will improve water tightness, thermal efficiency and the overall appearance of the houses.

The project has grown since it was initially conceived and will now include new front porches and fences, paths and fences, the removal of first floor fireplace among other work.

During the work, tenants will be ’decanted into one of the 12 project-specific decant properties’.

The tenants would be moved out for about eight weeks. Currently it is not known what the projected cost will be for the other 116 homes in the Spring Valley estate.

Chairman of the housing committee Clare Wells said: ’It is difficult to call how much ti will cost. In phase one, the economies of scale won’t be available so these houses are £98,000 each but after phase one we will look at whether it is better value to demolish or rebuild the houses.’

Mrs Wells also provided an estimated timeframe for completing the work for the entire estate of four to five years.

Mr Christian asked Mrs Wells if she would be supporting demolition, how long the life span of the work was and argued that ’the discussion over value should be happening now’.

She told him that the life expectancy was 30 years for the works but that problems with the Department of Infrastructure was why the value for money test has to be done this way.

Mrs Wells said: ’We’ve been trying but the DoI won’t support a rebuild. If you look at Willaston, they stopped us doing what we wanted there.

’My concern is, if we stop now to look at rebuilding then it is more delay and it appears that a rebuild would result in the same exterior appearance but cost more.

Mr Christian asked if the DoI was ’on board’ with the council going ahead with the first phase.

Mrs Wells assured him that the department ’has approved the pre-tender so yes it is’.

Douglas Council unanimously supported a recommendation to begin the first phase.