Returning to old house

[Naomio]

Any advice v welcome - sorry for the length!
I have had my male Bengal , Jasper age 9 since he was a kitten and were in the same house for all of it until we moved to a new town about a year ago. He had always gone outside via a catflap and came home everyday. Then in our new place we backed onto the woods so he loved it, hunting and lazing around. We had to move from there in May and have only moved about 20 min walk away, across a main road. We decided to keep him in 5 weeks but he escaped several times, each time we restarted the clock. When he escaped, we found him back at our old house (In the area, as the house was sold so still empty). He's still in house lockdown but is very unhappy, constantly howling, scratching to get out and had blood in his poo from stress. He loves being outside and feel so bad but don't want him to go back to old house and cross main road. I thought he'd come back home for food but one time he was gone 2 nights, when I got him home he was starving hungry. We are only on week 3 and feel in 2 weeks he won't be ready to released - any tips? He doesn't like a harness unfortunately and I play with him as much as possible with feather fishing rod things
Thanks in advance

[fjm]

Is it possible to create a safe area for him outside - perhaps an enclosed run outside a door or window? If he is so desperate to be out it may be adding to his urge to go back to the old house - there he was free to come and go, with territory and hunting on the doorstep, and the new house must seem like a very poor substitute to him. A safe catio may be enough to reconcile him to the change long enough for him to settle.

[Naomio]

That's a good idea, thank you. I'm at my wits end, he's very distressed staying in and I can get through the howling if I know an end is in sight but think after any amount of time he's going to go back to old house. Our tenancy is up in Nov so could look to see about moving then but it's getting thru until then- feel so bad for him