CEREDIGION had the joint lowest number of successful applications for a Welsh Government scheme to bring empty houses back into use, a report has found.

The Welsh Government’s Houses into Homes scheme was launched to provide loans to owners of properties that had been empty for more than six months to carry out work to bring them back into use.

But from the start of the scheme in April 2012 to the end of March in 2015, just seven loans were approved in the county, the joint lowest along with Caerphilly and Monmouthshire.

Those seven loans in Ceredigion produced the lowest number of units that would be provided under the scheme in Wales, with nine units due to be provided with the loans.

Two other applications were being processed in Ceredigion, while three other applications which had either been rejected or withdrawn.

Ceredigion was included in a Mid and West Wales region for the scheme, but the other counties - Powys, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire - all had at least double the number of loans approved, with Pembrokeshire having 14, 17 in Powys and 18 in Carmarthenshire.

Across Wales there were a total of 360 successful applications using funding of more than £15.3m. That enabled more than 7,500 vacant properties to be either brought back into use or stopped from becoming derelict.

The figures are in a report into the Houses into Homes scheme which has hailed the project a success, as it had surpassed the Welsh Government target for the scheme.