CASH-strapped Bradford Council has denied a plan to sell off Ilkley public buildings to raise funds to keep them running.

However, property companies are lining up to take public buildings off the council's hands in return for cash. The private manager would then lease the buildings back to Bradford if the deal went ahead.

According to deputy council leader Councillor Simon Cooke (Con, Bingley Rural) the transfer deal would only be temporary, lasting between 15 and 20 years.

The districtwide move could see buildings including Ilkley Town Hall, The King's Hall/Winter Garden complex, White Wells, Ilkley Library, Addingham's Old School and Library, The Manor House Museum, Burley-in-Wharfedale's Queen's Hall, and the Kirklands Centre, Menston, being handed over.

Coun Cooke said the council was considering setting up a partnership body between itself and private companies.

This would allow the private companies to borrow between £60 million and £90 million which is needed to upgrade the buildings and make them comply with new disabled access regulations.

Coun Cooke said: "There is no sell-off involved in the process but I can understand people's fears."

He said the temporary transfer of management was the only way to secure the investment needed for around 600 buildings across the district.

He admitted that Bradford Council's management of the buildings had not been good enough. Councillors want professional expertise to run the buildings, which create a total of £6.9 million in rent and lease income for City Hall. But Coun Cooke stressed that any negotiations were still in the early stages. He said: "We have not made a decision - it will probably take us a year to discuss it with the partners.

"Any decision will probably be made by the council at the beginning of next year, so we have go a long way to go before any decision is taken."

Other buildings and properties, such as farms, billboards, parks, swimming pools, leisure centres and even The Woolpack Inn at Esholt, take the council's total portfolio up to around the £1 billion mark.

The council is looking to sell off some of its assets which it no longer finds a use for but insists that major municipal buildings would be transferred back to public ownership in 15 or 20 years time.

"We are not flogging them off to the highest bidder and it is not a process of selling them off and leasing them back," said Coun Cooke.