LABOUR says it has been left with an £800,000 shortfall for work on York’s council houses.

The party said it would have to look at how a window-replacement programme agreed by the previous Liberal Democrat administration was run.

City of York Council officers said its cost over the next five years would be £3.2 million, but the Housing Revenue Account balance available would be £2.4 million. Labour leader James Alexander said his group had inherited “debt, waste and unbalanced budgets”.

But Lib Dem councillor and former housing boss Ann Reid said a system under which York council rents helped subsidise other authorities would soon end, allowing more money to be invested in housing stock.

She said: “This year’s programme is fully funded, and even if the current system continued, money in the budget can be used for the full programme if Labour chose to use it that way.”