MANY years ago the concept of the council house was invented to solve the horrendous housing problems suffered by our industrial towns and cities. In post-Second World War Britain, millions of people were given the chance to exchange their privately-rented slums for brand new homes because of the contribution local authorities were able to make to the nation's housing stock.

People who had no chance of being able to afford a mortgage were able to place a roof over their head thanks to a national mood of social responsibility.

Admittedly, mistakes were made as the country soon learned that high-rise, impersonal blocks of flats were not ideal places to live, but even as late as the 1970s some families were still discovering the joys of inside toilets and bathrooms on new housing estates. Contrary to some opinion, poor families rather enjoyed being able to take a bath instead of using it as a coal storing receptacle.

The blame for what subsequently went wrong could be placed fairly and squarely at lack of investment and absence of proper management of repairs, maintenance and modernisation. But the radical cure now on offer seems to avoid the reality of the situation and we are back to square one with local authorities proposing the first stage in abandoning responsibility for social housing.

What Bradford wants to do is place all its housing stock into the hands of not-for-profit housing trusts. There are guarantees that rents will not rise for a few years but does anyone really expect - especially in a place like Ilkley where property prices are astronomical - this situation will continue in the long-term.

As in the case of the district's education system, the local authority is admitting failure and cutting the problem adrift. How many more services is the council going to abandon in the future and why, if the local authority has a lot less to do, are we having to pay such hefty increases in Council Tax?