COUNCIL house sales will give Burnley an £8million boost for home improvements in the town.

The money is being released by the Government over the next five years to help the authority tackle the £40million backlog of council house repairs, housing chairman Coun Rafique Malik revealed today.

It comes from a pool of cash built up from the sale of council houses to tenants exercising the Right to Buy their homes - but which previous Tory Governments refused to allow councils to use.

The new Government has given the go-ahead to release the money for improvements - and that means next year Burnley will spend on new central heating in older council properties and a facelift for sheltered housing complexes.

"A great deal more is needed, but it is a very positive step in the right direction," said Coun Malik.

The news comes as it was revealed that £180million needs to be spent on East Lancashire's council houses to bring them up to scratch.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice got the figures from Housing Minister Nick Raynesford.

He was told that Blackburn needed to spend £81.9million, and Rossendale £46.6million. The figure for capital works on municipal homes in Hyndburn is £19.7million, in Ribble Valley £6.6million and Pendle £4.5million.

Mr Prentice said: "I was shocked by the scale of the problem. It will take millions to address all the problems we face in East Lancashire."

He said the new Government had started to tackle the problem by allowing councils to spend, in phases, the money from council house and other property sales.

"Nobody believes we can wave a magic wand, but we all want to see steady progress made. We also have a very big and rundown private sector and it too needs help."

In Burnley, Coun Malik said apart from repairs to the council's 5,500-home municipal housing stock, £105million was needed for essential improvements in the private sector.

The council, he said, was investigating new initiatives to tackle the problems, including setting up a privately-backed company to take over the council stock - allowing it to inject new money for repairs, while still keeping control of the council housing in public hands.

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