ALMOST 20,000 homes and shops in Liverpool are empty – that’s one in 10 of the city’s entire stock.

The figure was revealed by housing officials as they launched a dereliction taskforce.

Government and council-backed regeneration schemes, which empty struggling neighbourhoods for demolition and rebuilding, have been criticised for adding to the problem.

Residents in some of Liverpool’s oldest communities complained that their lives were being ruined by vandals, arsonists and fly-tippers attracted to boarded-up houses.

But a specialist team has now been set up at Liverpool council to handle hundreds of cases referred by fed-up residents.

Ministers have also been urged to scrap VAT on property developing in rundown parts of the city. The council team is now:

Bringing two empty homes a day back into use.

Using agents to find absent owners.

Legally forcing owners to sell properties if they do not repay the council for emergency work.

Cllr Marilyn Fielding, executive member for housing, said: “We have a big problem with absentee landlords buying up a property and letting it fall into disrepair.

“Elderly people die and their homes often end up in the hands of solicitors because it is hard to trace relatives.”

Complaints about vacant houses normally fall into three categories – fly-tipping or pest problems, structural defects, or one “bad tooth” bringing down a whole street.

The council receives about 1,000 calls a year. Over the past 12 months, more than 400 owners were ordered to improve or sell derelict homes.

Officials are now trying new ways of tackling the problem, such as asking homeowners in demolition-threatened areas to swop old houses for refurbished ones.

The council points to the redevelopment of the Garston Hotel pub and Seddon House, also in Garston, as success stories.

They are now focusing on problems like Prescot Drive in Fairfield and Alderwood Avenue in Speke.

New Heartlands will see thousands of properties demolished, rebuilt and refurbished over a 15-year period.

But terraced streets in Toxteth, Anfield, Kensington and Wavertree are being left half-derelict before bulldozers move in.

Anti-demolition campaigner Cllr Steve Radford, who frequently compiles lists of empty properties in his Tuebrook ward, has repeatedly called for the programme to be suspended.