COUNCIL bosses hope to sell as many as 140 council homes in ‘high value’ – ie expensive – areas of York to raise cash to replace them with modern council housing elsewhere in the city.

The houses likely to be sold have not been individually identified, but The Press understands that they are older, pre-1920s properties in affluent areas of the city such as Clifton Green and Bootham, where properties sell for high values.

York’s Labour housing boss Cllr Michael Pavlovic stressed that ‘absolutely nobody’ would be evicted from their council homes – and that properties would only be gradually sold off over a period of years as they became vacant.

But the authority’s Lib Dem opposition leader Cllr Nigel Ayre said the idea of selling off council homes in expensive areas of York was like ‘Conservative policies in London that Labour previously referred to as “social cleansing on a vast scale”’.

The proposals are outlined in a report to the council’s Executive on Thursday which sets out plans for a formal ‘council house acquisitions and disposals policy’.

Council bosses stress that 140 homes represents only about two per cent of the authority’s entire council housing stock of about 7,400 homes.

But the report to Executive says: “Homes built prior to 1920 are often more expensive to maintain, more complicated and expensive to retrofit to high levels of thermal comfort, and are often more difficult to adapt to meet the changing needs of residents.

“Some of these homes are also in areas with higher values. This therefore presents an opportunity to seek to dispose of some of these homes and to replace them with more modern homes which better meet the needs of council house customers.”

Reacting to the proposals, Cllr Ayre said: “The Liberal Democrat group is deeply concerned with these policies.

“The sale of council houses in the ‘high value areas in York’ is no different to Conservative policies in London that Labour previously referred to as ‘social cleansing on a vast scale’.

“In addition, it pushes the issue of properly insulating these homes off onto the private sector.

“Communities flourish best when there are mixed communities and that means social homes in the city centre. Given the proposed policy is to replace one for one this does not increase affordable homes just moves them elsewhere.”

But Cllr Pavlovic, the authority’s executive member for housing, defended the proposal.

“Our policy on the selective sale of some empty council housing is based on a range of considerations including how much it will cost to make them energy efficient for council tenants,” he said.

“Where we can provide more energy efficient council housing and lower ongoing maintenance costs by selling and reinvesting, we’ll consider doing so. The alternative is to accept fewer, poorly insulated homes in the midst of a housing affordability crisis in the city”.

The proposals will be debated at Thursday's Executive meeting.