HUNDREDS of council tenants could be paid more than £5,000 to leave their properties early in a bid to push forward a long-delayed housing scheme.

The £100m Townhill Park regeneration project will see the area around Meggeson Avenue redeveloped, with 665 new homes built in 11 phases by 2028.

A meeting of Southampton City Council's cabinet this week approved a new set of policies for decommissioning and acquiring properties which would allow the council to complete the scheme.

Tenants would also receive an additional enhanced payment for leaving early, although it is unclear at the moment how much. Leaseholders will be given the chance to reach an agreement to sell.

Work on the site was due to have started in 2014 but the city council said delays had been due to “complexity” of the site and the process of listening to residents’ feedback.

By now around half of the residents should have been rehoused if the original timetable had been followed.

Demolition work on Plot 1, on the corner of Meggeson Avenue and Townhill Way, and Plot 2, on the opposite corner of the same site, is almost complete and more than 100 properties have been knocked down.

Further work to decommission the remaining 292 properties on Meggeson Avenue, plus several on Rowlands Walk, Benham’s Road, Hallett Close, Kingsdown Way and Ozier Road will take place within the next six years.

In total 428 properties, dating from the 1960s, will be demolished.

The affected residents will be given the opportunity to have their say in a 12-week consultation that will run from July 12.

Councillor Simon Letts, the leader of Southampton City Council, said: “It is vital that we provide good quality homes for Southampton people so it is vital that we press ahead with the regeneration of Townhill Park.

“Council tenants will receive an enhanced payment on top of the statutory £5,500 while leaseholders will be given the opportunity to reach a voluntary agreement for the acquisition of the property. If not then we then acquire the property through the appropriate legal channels.

“The regeneration will also enhance the economic, social and wellbeing of its residents, with such measures as traffic calming of Meggeson Avenue and the creation of a new central ‘village green’ and the improvements to linked green spaces and Frog’s Copse.”

The council says it will rehouse their tenants but they will have no statutory right to return to Townhill Park once it has been redeveloped.

Councillor Warwick Payne, cabinet member for housing and sustainability on Southampton City Council, said: “Our new policy makes it in residents’ interest to reach a deal with us quickly and simply once they have been given notice to leave rather than hanging onto the bitter end where we would serve a compulsory purchase order and they would likely get less.”

However, chairman of the Townhill Park Community Association, Jo Proctor, pictured left, branded the council’s actions as sneaky and misleading.

She said: “I have spoken to a few residents and they are concerned that the council has not even informed the residents publicly about this – only a few know about what the council has been up to.

“Many residents have been making decisions over the last few years but now they have completely rearranged the timetable even with the enhanced offer.

“Someone needs to put their head above the parapet or people will start to make their own theories.”