WORK to demolish boarded-up properties on an abandoned housing estate in Flintshire will start early next month.
The Welsh Assembly applied to Flintshire Council for outline planning permission to tear down dozens of derelict homes in Aston Mead, Deeside, and re-develop the site with affordable housing back in April.
About 30 tenants were evicted from the estate to make way for a new seven-lane ‘super-highway’ planned for the A494, Queensferry, following a compulsory purchase order by the Assembly.
But the controversial road plan was scrapped last March in the face of fierce opposition.
Security guards were drafted in to protect the empty homes from vandals and squatters while the Assembly decided what to do next, at a cost to taxpayers of about £12,000 a month.
Now, 18 months on, the empty homes are due to be demolished.
An Assembly spokesman said work was due to start on Monday, September 7 and would take about four weeks.
Under the redevelopment plans, which are yet to be approved by the local authority, a 30m section of land near the A494 will be retained by the Assembly pending future proposals.
Three out of eight properties on Hillfield Road will be spared the bulldozers.
Ieuan Wyn Jones, deputy first minister at the Assembly, has said it is unlikely work to improve the A494 between Queensferry and Ewloe will begin before 2014.
In the meantime, the Assembly is looking at other ways of easing traffic in the area.