15/07/2006 - "Prescott's troubled £3bn demolition plans face enquiry"
The national audit commission is preparing to investigate John Prescott's troubled £3 billion Pathfinder scheme which is demolishing tens of thousands of terrace homes in the Midlands and the North
The enquiry would examine whether the scheme represented good value for taxpayers' money.
Pathfinder, inadvertently given the same name as the RAF squadrons whose flares lit up the targets for the bombers that laid waste Germany's industrial towns in the Second World War, was set up to "renew" the housing market in the north.
However, it has been a source of complaint and legal challenge from protestors having their homes compulsorily purchased for demolition. Opposition and even Labour MPs have said it is a huge waste of public money.
...Ruth Kelly, Mr Prescott's successor, has yet to comment on it.
...the Pathfinder scheme was set up to refurbish and replace housing in nine areas...however, the housing market has revived to some extent in all the areas earmarked for demolition and houses are now worth up to three times what they were when some were abandoned.
...A senior official at the National Audit Office revealed that feasibilty studies for a full-scale investigation has been done and that a decision on whether to proceed would be made by Sie John Bourn, the comptroller and auditor general, within weeks"