Facelift for homes at risk

Plans to refurbish bathrooms in council houses in Cannock Chase could be scrapped in a bid to claw back millions of pounds to prop up the council's housing budget.

Councillors will decide how to fill the growing financial black hole facing the authority at a meeting in September.

It is expected they will be asked to scrap a scheme to refurbish ageing bathrooms.

This could save £2.7 million over the next five years.

The council is legally obliged to keep a balanced housing budget – but it must also meet the Government's minimum decent homes standard.

Council leader Neil Stanley today said scrapping the replacement bathroom programme was the council's only option to allow it to meet the standards up to 2012/13.

Even with that extra cash the council will face an £8 million deficit by 2018 and Councillor Stanley admitted the council had no idea how it would continue to fund housing improvements in the long term.

He said: "We have to do what we can to prolong the time we can maintain decent homes standards. This is the only option open to us but what happens after 2013 nobody knows."

He said the council would continue to meet its legal obligations but that in the long-term the Government had to come up with a new solution.

He said: "It is a problem for the Government and we can't keep selling council houses to raise money forever."

The council's problems have been created after the downturn in the housing market, which has shrunken the cash it is getting from the sale of vacant bungalows and other assets. The council is also forced to pay a £3 million housing subsidy to the Government every year and cannot use the council tax to pay housing costs.