A DEVELOPER is selling a luxury flat development at a discount rate to pay for the construction of 55 homes on a derelict site.

Precision Homes is trying to sell 11 flats in Basford at £1.35 million, thousands less than the £1.73 million valuation.

The cash will be used to fund the proposed construction of houses on the site of the former Simpsons Pottery, in Cobridge, above right.

Peter Campbell, director of the Liverpool-based developer, said: "We had a valuation done by the firm Gerald Eve, which valued the site at £1.73 million, but we are prepared to take £1.35 million to allow us to move on.

"Hopefully we can find a buyer soon as our next job will be good for us, good for the area, which is in need of regeneration, and good for the local economy as we use a predominately local workforce."

The two-bedroom, two-bathroom flats are available a block or as individual units.

Mr Campbell said the flats, which are opposite the Polite Vicar pub on Etruria Road, are due to be finished in the next two weeks.

Mr Campbell said Precision Homes carried out the demolition of the pottery after Stoke-on-Trent City Council raised concerns the building was structurally unsafe last year.

Simpsons was founded in Tunstall in 1904 and closed about 100 years later.

Residents welcomed any development of the site, which has attracted vandalism and fly-tipping in recent years.

Steven Pritchard, chairman of Portland and Cobridge Residents' Association, said: "If they're going to provide affordable housing that would be very welcome to the local people.

"It has been a problem site for a while and the sooner it can be returned back to use, the better."