ONCE again, the enormity of the financial millstone that council housing has become for East Lancashire local authorities is made plain. Just two weeks after Burnley's level of empty and unwanted houses became the highest in the country, Blackburn with Darwen was told it faced a repair bill of £100 million that could be nowhere near met for its council houses which are also increasingly shunned.

It may be that, thanks now to the ring-fencing of council housing finance, these king-size liabilities are not directly draining the wallets of taxpayers generally, but they do feel the effects in their contributions to housing benefit welfare. And still the real headache remains for both the councils and their tenants whose rents go up to offset revenue shortfalls and whose maintenance and improvement needs meet slower responses because the revenue is never enough, be it from rents or from the government.

Yet, what is becoming increasingly clear is that this vicious spiral - ultimately, one of throwing good money after bad - cannot continue.

The increasing movement by councils towards offloading their housing stock on the private sector is evidence of the realisation of this.

But while Blackburn with Darwen has sought this option - though, it seems, while still retaining political reservations about actually employing it - and had it refused, at least pro tem, by the government, it has now, perhaps, reached the stage when it must begin cutting its losses. Like other councils with problem estates that are avoided by the decreasing numbers of would-be tenants, Blackburn with Darwen has lost a lot of money on trying by improvement programmes and even public relations exercises to attract people into houses that no-one wants.

A result of that is that tenants elsewhere have also paid a price for that in getting a second-class response to their improvements and repairs needs.

The council has already commissioned an independent study which has recommended it should cut itself loose from this problem by getting rid of its unwanted houses.

And if it cannot or will not sell the houses off to private landlords, it must look at the other option of flattening them and perhaps then realising their sites as assets.

This is fast becoming the only realistic option left, as burying its head in the sand must no longer be one.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.