DEMOLITION is under way of the troubled Cheviot Court flats on Christchurch's Somerford Estate.

Despite security fencing around the site, youths are still causing a nuisance there and risking life and limb by climbing up onto the roof.

The 18 two-bedroom flats will make way for 39 affordable homes, a mixture of two- and three-bedroomed family houses and one- and two-bedroomed flats to rent and a dozen two-bed flats for a shared ownership scheme to get people on the housing ladder. Preference will go to local people.

Ron Manley, the chairman of Twynham Housing Association, part of the Sovereign Housing Group, took the controls of the huge digger to take the first bites out of the unloved building.

As the first balcony tumbled, Twynham's managing director Marion Franks said: "We had a lot of antisocial behaviour here. It was a magnet for local youths. It had three entrances and they would get into the building.

"We've still problems with youngsters. They have been over the fence here and climbing on the roof.

"We are going to beef up security with CCTV cameras linked up with a central control room."

The project is due to completion in January 2010. In the meantime, to improve the look of the site, graffiti artists are going to be sought to work with the local community to paint murals on the security fencing.

People who lived in the flats have all been offered alternative accommodation.

Only three initially wished to return to the replacement homes, and two of them have since changed their minds.