AN East Lancashire council needs to find £1.2million to pay for overdue repairs, a report has revealed.

Members of the housing committee of Ribble Valley Council were told at a meeting last night that £42.5million needs to be spent over the next 30 years to make sure council houses in the borough remain up to scratch.

The money includes £24.6million for programmed repairs -- jobs which will need to be carried out over a certain time time -- and £2.7million on repairing houses after one tenant leaves but before another arrives.

But the council first needs to locate the £1.2million to carry out catch-up repairs; jobs which should have already been done.

The backlog of repairs was identified in stock condition survey of all of its 1,394 council houses which are spread right across the Valley.

It is hoped that, by drawing up the action plan now, the council will help prevent a housing crisis in the future, providing a good standard of homes to people requiring council houses.

The council currently gets £1.3million a year from the government to spend on repairing its housing stock.

This works out at £39million over 30 years, leaving a shortfall of £3.5million. It expects to be able to make up that money by adopting a 'just in time' approach to repairs. A spokesman for the council said: "Catch-up repairs are those which need doing now and should have been done when elements of houses failed or went past the economical life.

"The works have been spot priced by the surveyors, meaning they have only costed for parts of those elements and not the whole thing.

"The survey has identified necessary expenditure to the housing stock over the next 30 years. It is in the region of £42.5million. These costs including responsive repairs, programmed repairs and improvements over the next 30 years."

A spokesman for the East Lancashire Landlords Association said: "The problem with tenants leaving houses in poor condition is getting worse.

"But it is especially bad in the private sector because there are so many empty houses around."

Disabled adaptations will cost just £600,000, while cyclical maintenance -- repairs which the council has to carry out regularly -- will cost £5million.