COUNCIL houses in Craven need an estimated £10 million spending on them to bring them up to standard but Craven District Council estimates it can only raise just over half this amount.

The future of 1,700 houses hangs in the balance as the council decides how best to fund the improvements without tenants facing huge rent increases.

One option is to transfer the houses to a housing association.

Council chairman Peter Walbank said: "We are now approaching what is perhaps the most important period ever in our history as housing providers.

"I know how important it is to all tenants to have a modern kitchen and bathroom, central heating, repairs done and a warm decent home. I also know that the council is finding it increasingly hard to provide these things."

The council is considering transferring its housing stock to a a non-profit making housing association. Unlike the council, it could borrow money privately to give a better service to tenants.

The council could also set up its own housing association, which would be run as a separate entity.

If the transfer option does go-ahead, the council's housing staff would be offered jobs with the association.

A survey discovered that in the coming 10 years 317 houses would need new roofs, 918 needed new kitchens, and 391 needed rewiring.

To date over 100 councils have transferred 400,000 properties to housing associations or local housing companies.

However the council cannot transfer its housing stock without the agreement of the majority of its tenants by means of a ballot.

If the council agreed a large scale voluntary transfer, all existing tenants would get such promises as a rent guarantee limiting increases for five years, protected existing rights including the right to buy and the completion of outstanding repairs in the first five years.

Housing consultants Chapman Hendy Associates, who prepared a report on the options, stated that if the council transferred the houses to a new landlord, all the repairs could be done and the rents remain affordable.

To meet the costs through rent increases they would have to be raised by more than £25 per week.

Leader of the council Coun David Crawford said: "This is, of course unacceptable to a council which has always prided itself on keeping rents affordable. Such large increases would be likely to cause tenants hardship."

He added that the current backlog of work was not the making of Craven District but as a result of under funding by central Government. "We had hoped the new Government would address this imbalance but, while many of the larger metropolitan authorities have seen increases in their housing allocation of over 50 per cent, Craven's increase has been eight per cent."

The council's chief executive Rachel Mann said: "Members will be keen to ensure that employees and tenants, in particular, are closely involved in the decision making process."

A newsletter has already been sent to council tenants, and ownership of the council's housing stock will be considered at two public meetings on July 10 in Gargrave Village Hall, and on July 19 in Skipton Town Hall.

* Ironically this important decision has come in the same week as Craven District Council in conjunction with the Greatwood and Horse Close estate was described as an example of best practice by the Regional Housing Statement.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.