[fatgit]

One of the issues with the CPO process, is that the council have to purchase the property, and the freehold.
CPO'ing the property is the easier part - but not without it's problems. The issue has been the freeholds, as they need to buy these from the owner, and cannot (as I understand it), CPO the freehold.
In Burnley Wood for example, one company owns about 1/3 of the freeholds for properties that have been CPO'd, and wanted ~3 times the market value for those freeholds, and Elevate are only allowed to pay the market value. Obviously, this has caused huge problems. There can also be a lot of problems actually tracking down the freehold owners.

As for facelifting, yes, you can facelift the house but you can't facelift the resident. I saw this myself on the Kirkholt estate in Rochdale, where the worst part of the estate had millions spent on it, putting in double glazing, new garden walls and fences, security bars on windows etc, but the same trouble families were still there, and after a couple of years, the area looked just as bad as before.

What do you do though ?
Do you let entire areas degenerate into a slum, then knock it down and rebuild it ? Who wants to move to an area that's got that sort of reputation, whether it's been rebuilt or not.
What do you do with the bad residents ? They have to live somewhere, so you move them out, and push the problem into another area.

In my opinion, facelifting / renovation / regeneration should not just be about the properties, but also the people, the community, and the attitudes.
You can use mediation organisations, ASBO's, court orders, fines, social services(try not to laugh at that one!), community groups, support groups etc, to tackle the issues in the area, while you are renovating it.