Families battling to save their homes on a council estate from demolition have gone on the attack.

Backed by Keighley MP Ann Cryer, residents of the Carr Bank estate at East Morton are seeking evidence to prove Bradford Council was negligent.

They hope to show their homes are unsound because the council failed to carry out promised repairs.

Mrs Cryer was away from her office, but a spokesman said: "Ann says she is happy to stand with residents, but that we need to get some structural evidence on our side as well. If we can show that had this (work) been done a year ago, or when promised two years ago, the houses wouldn't be like they are today -- the neglect is on the council's part."

Lynne Greenham, who also lives on the estate, said she was prepared to do all she could to save her own and her neighbours' homes.

Residents had been told a structural engineer, working on behalf of Bradford Council, deemed 18 homes structurally unsound and should be repaired or demolished within the year.

Bradford Council said it could not fund repairs estimated to cost £34,000 per home so would have to opt for demolition.

The council would make alternative arrangements for those losing homes.

But residents are seeking a second opinion from a survey to be carried out by another structural engineer appointed by the Tenants' Association.

Mrs Greenham said: "At the moment we're in limbo until we get the second report back. There's only one place in the country that tests concrete, and they've not been to test the samples yet.

"A letter from Mrs Cryer was waiting for me when I returned from holiday. It gives us even more hope."

Vital advice will come from Fay Searle, of Ashwell, Hertfordshire, where houses of the same Airey design came under threat for the same reasons.

Residents there saved their homes with a high profile campaign and the services of a builder who repaired the houses for a fraction of the council's estimated cost.

Mrs Searle sent step by step records of Ashwell's 1992-3 campaign to the KN, which this week arranged to hand them over to Mrs Greenham.

She said: "It gives us a head start because I didn't really know where to go apart from Mrs Cryer and looking for European funding."