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Liverpool Council bosses approved plans to give themselves the power to force the sale of houses needed for the regeneration of Anfield.

But they said compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) would only be used to buy the remaining 30 properties needed for the £260m project as a last resort.

At the cabinet meeting, Mayor Joe Anderson said negotiations were ongoing with the home owners and deals should be struck without having to use legal powers.

Mayor Anderson said: “CPOs are the final stage of the process. There are lots of negotiations and discussions to go through but we use them as the final trigger to get action one way or another.”

Some of the properties are in Rockfield Road, and are likely to be needed in order to allow for the expansion of Anfield stadium.

Two of the eight in Rockfield Road that are needed have now been secured after deals were reached with the owners.

Some of the remaining 30 dotted around Anfield are derelict or substandard, and in some cases the owners cannot be traced at all.

Cabinet member for housing Cllr Ann O’Byrne said the homes were needed in order that new life could be breathed into the area.

She added: “We are convinced that the majority of this can be achieved the way it’s been achieved with the 300 others, by one-to-one negotiation.”

As well as a new football stadium, 700 new homes and 10,000 square feet of retail space including a ‘food hub’ in Stanley Park, the project is also expected to create up to 700 new jobs.

Cabinet member for employment, enterprise and skills Cllr Nick Small said: “We will shortly be setting up an employment group dedicated to this project, bringing together all the groups to make sure there’s a real impact in terms of jobs.”

CPO use should be extended

Opposition leaders said they believed compulsory purchase orders needed to be used more in other areas besides Anfield to deal with the blight of empty homes.

Liberal group leader Cllr Steve Radford, whose Tuebrook ward borders Anfield, said: “We’ve said to officers we should use CPOs to force the owners of some of the derelicts in Tuebrook to do something, but they won’t even use the threat of it.

“It seems like a double standard and is holding up the progress on the council’s housing policy.

“And of course they’re running out of time to spend the funding and house prices are rising.”

But cabinet member for housing Cllr Ann O’Byrne said the council was doing all it could in wards like Tuebrook.

However, she said, the prices that some owners were asking for properties, compared to the funds available to the housing associations who want to buy them and refurbish them, made some projects unviable.

She added: “It’s about targeting the resources in the best way possible.

“We’ve brought more than 1,000 properties in the city back into use. Some we have taken off people, but in the majority of cases we’ve talked to landlords to get them to do it.”