ARMED with £15 million, a giant property company is on the hunt to swallow up other housing development firms in North and East Yorkshire.

The McInerney Group says it regards the region as "the next hotspot." as the number of first time buyers is set to rise dramatically over the next few years.

Pat O'Flynn, managing director of the Group, uses 2001 census projections to point out that the 15 - 29 year-old age group in Yorkshire will have risen from 963,000 to 987,000 in four years to 2005 - a rise of 24,000.

As this is the age group that makes up the majority of the first-time buyer market, it is reckoned that the region will need more than 11,000 new homes to satisfy housing demand.

Mr O'Flynn has now been given a banking facility of £15 million by the Royal Bank of Scotland to target property companies for acquisition, particularly in North and East Yorkshire where the slowdown in house prices is not as great as the rest of the county.

Already the Dublin-based McInerney Holdings plc whose UK subsidiary headquarters is in Standish, Wigan, is said to be in talks with "several" companies in the region. He said: "Yorkshire, especially North and East Yorkshire, is of prime interest to the McInerney Group as the market is economically viable and still showing lucrative signs of strong capital gain in the property market.

"We believe in a policy of 'friendly acquisition' which we have already employed successfully to date.

"So we are looking to acquire property companies with a strong management team and a good knowledge of their market and we aim to retain staff at any businesses we acquire."

All three successful homes and city apartment brands previously acquired and through which McInerney operates in the UK kept their managements, staff and locations.

William Hargreaves, which consists of Hargreaves Homes, Hargreaves Development and Hargreaves Contracting, bought in 1999, remain in Bolton, while Charlton Homes, acquired in January last year, continues to operate with the same management and staff at Standesh, Wigan. Its subsidiary, SPACE, remains in Liverpool.

Updated: 15:14 Tuesday, September 23, 2003