  Based on the FIRST and SDSS catalogues a flux density limited sample of weak
Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) sources with radio luminosity below 10^26 [W/Hz]
at 1.4 GHz has been constructed. Our previous multifrequency observations of
CSS sources have shown that low luminosity small-scale objects can be strong
candidates for compact faders. This finding supports the idea that some
small-size radio sources are short-lived phenomena because of a lack of
significant fuelling. They never 'grow up' to become FRI or FRII objects. This
new sample marks the start of a systematical study of the radio properties and
morphologies of the population of low luminosity compact (LLC) objects. An
investigation of this new sample should also lead to a better understanding of
compact faders. In this paper, the results of the first stage of the new
project - the L-band MERLIN observations of 44 low luminosity CSS sources are
presented.
