BAD housing conditions are making Preston pensioners ill.

Age Concern reckons 84 per cent of pensioners' homes are either too cold or damp and illnesses caused by poor housing conditions cost the NHS £1 billion a year.

And Care and Repair - a Preston group helping old people to maintain their homes - has attacked government plans to axe cash help for house repairs.

Care and Repair's Hilda Bentley said: "Pensioners who live in poor conditions now have a right to government help with their repairs. Under new home repair grants, they will only be paid at the discretion of their local council.

"The scheme supposedly doubles the grant for maintenance. This sounds good news, but if councils don't put any extra money in, it won't achieve anything."

Locally, a quarter of last year's calls to Age Concern Preston's helpline were from people concerned about house maintenance.

Preston's housing chairman, Tony Reid, said if the Bill is passed, the council will try to increase its current £100,000 spending on maintenance grants.

He said: "We hope to put in more cash and help more people, as long as the government ends the squeeze on council funding."

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