Flats in Carlisle Street, Preston, which have been standing for more than 20 years, are to be razed to allow a road to be widened as part of the £700m Tithebarn rebirth.

But upset residents, many of them elderly, say the upheaval will wreck their lives.

In an emotional plea to council bosses, one said: "Please would you consider widening the road a few yards to the other side to save our homes?

"None of us want to move. We are all happy and settled and don't want to move."

Residents at all 10 Carlisle Street flats, including several in their 80s and one 94-year-old, have written letters to Preston Council pleading with them to change the plans.

It comes as the Lancashire Evening Post reveals that 16 separate objections have already been received over the regeneration, with eight objectors enlisting solicitors to act for them.

Stephen Corless, 43, a full time carer for his girlfriend Susan Bridge, 42, who suffers from epilepsy, moved to Carlisle Street to be close to the city centre.

He said: "No one wants to move, we don't want to go back to living in rough areas. We like our neighbours and we want to stay together.

"There is a 94-year-old woman here, it is not fair to ask a woman in her 90s to move.

"Why can't they extend the road the other way and leave us alone?"

Grandfather Gordon Curwen, 74, a retired Preston dock worker, was the first tenant to move into Carlisle Street when the flats were built in the 1970s.

He said the Community Gateway Association, which owns the flats, only renovated them two years ago.

He added: "We're all elderly people on this road.

"When they were doing the houses up, that was upheaval and there were a couple of people who were really ill.

"Now they have all been done up, they are going to knock them down."

In an impassioned letter to the council, Carlisle Street resident Dorothy Pearson said: "I am very worried about where I will end up living.

"My neighbours and I are very settled here. Most of my neighbours are elderly and I don't think they could stand another move."

Mike Brogan, assistant director of city projects at Preston Council, said: "If it gets planning approval, it will move into the potential Compulsory Purchase Order stage.
"But before we have CPOs, things are preferably done by negotiation.

"The developers will either need to relocate people or pay them appropriate monies if they can't."

A total of 16 residents and businesses have so far registered formal objections to the Tithebarn scheme.

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