Problem properties without occupants could be bought by the Town Hall using compulsory purchase orders if owners cannot be contacted.

And grants will be made available to landlords so other run-down empty homes can be renovated to rehouse homeless families.

Latest figures show there are 2,056 empty homes in the city – 603 fewer than last year.

More than 1,400 have been empty for more than six months.

Alex Starritt, empty homes officer at Preston Council, said: "Compulsory purchase orders would be a last resort where we have real problems trying to find owners and have used every means we can."

New occupants have moved into 92 of the homes salvaged from the empty list in the last year – twice as many as government targets.

Lesley Mullan, 56, has been rehoused by the Community Gateway Association in a bungalow which had been empty for weeks in Lyndhurst Drive, Savick.

Lesley, who had been waiting for more than five years for permanent housing, said: "If they are doing up empty properties and letting them on, it's a good idea. So many people are waiting for homes now and it seems the list is getting longer."

Preston Council's cabinet members will vote on plans to put forward £100,000 for renovation grants and compulsory purchase orders at a meeting on September 10.