RESIDENTS have their chance to influence the future of the Southtown area of Great Yarmouth by responding to a survey.So far, only 65 out of 600 questionnaires have been returned to the Southtown Housing Improvement Project (SHIP) since being distributed last week.

RESIDENTS have their chance to influence the future of the Southtown area of Great Yarmouth by responding to a survey.

So far, only 65 out of 600 questionnaires have been returned to the Southtown Housing Improvement Project (SHIP) since being distributed last week.

The borough council's SHIP project is the sister of the SHARP scheme, which is regenerating the tourist area around Camperdown and Wellesley Road in Yarmouth.

However, the SHIP project aims to regenerate the interiors of properties, rather than spruce up the outside which is the SHARP aim.

To achieve this, �3.4m of funding has been made available to bring qualifying houses up to the government's decent homes standard by improving electrical, structural, heating and hot water systems.

Alison Geraghty, project liaison officer, said: “As part of the regeneration, we are looking for input and advice from people as to what they feel is important for the area. We need to know if people feel anything has been made better.”

The two year SHIP project started in April and the Perception Survey is being carried out to find ideas to enable it to develop.