Selby District Council is planning to sell all of its 3,400 houses - for just £2,000 each.

In a controversial "sale of the century", councillors have voted to hand over one of their biggest assets to a housing association for about £7 million.

The Tory-led council said it was the only option capable of delivering the standard of improvements that tenants now demanded for their homes.

Conservative members said the transfer had also been backed by a special panel of council house tenants.

But furious Labour councillors today branded the plans a "disgrace", saying it was tantamount to "selling off the family silver".

Tory members argued that the sell-off would have no significant effects on tenants. They would still have the right to buy their homes and rents would remain the same.

Council housing chiefs said that to maintain the current standards of their properties over the next six years would cost £20 million - and over the next 30 years about £163 million.

They said it would be impossible to generate this amount of money when more than 120 tenants a year were buying their council homes - resulting in a loss of income of almost £500,000.

If this continued, it would lead to staff redundancies and a poorer service.

The average price for a Selby council house is currently £42,000 and council chiefs concede that selling them off for about £2,000 each is a "giveaway".

But they argue it is a fair price when the cost of repairs and bringing homes up to a decent standard are taken into account.

Coun Liz Casling, the council's social board chairman, said they were supporting the choice of tenants, who saw this as the best way forward.

Deputy leader Coun Wally Norton said Labour members' stance was a return to "socialist dogma."

But Labour councillor Mel Davis hit back, saying the vast majority of tenants she had spoken to wanted to stay with the council.

A ballot of tenants will now be held and if more than 50 per cent vote for the sell-off, it will go ahead.

Updated: 14:47 Thursday, July 29, 2004