THE future of Sedgefield Borough Council's housing stock is at a "defining moment", says a report.

A copy of the council's housing strategy and business plan, which looks forward 30 years, was presented to members last week.

The document discusses options for the future of the 10,000 council houses in the Sedgefield borough.

One of the key elements is the cost of maintaining the council's housing stock. All council houses must achieve the Government's Decent Homes target by the year 2010 and housing officers reckon that will cost £25.5m in the Sedgefield borough.

The council wants to adopt an asset management approach, maintaining the housing stock to a much higher standard, which would cost £116m over ten years.

The council expects to have £67m available to invest in housing over the next decade, enough to meet the Decent Homes target but short of the asset management figure.

Councillors were told by the authority's housing officers that the council needed to look at its options. Retaining ownership of all properties would mean insufficient funding to maintain homes to asset management level.

The council could take an "arms- length management" approach, under which it would retain ownership of the properties, but a separate management company would manage the stock. That could also fail to generate enough revenue to meet the shortfall.

The third option is transferring the stock to a Registered Social Landlord, which would allow the homes to be maintained to the higher standard, but would mean residual costs for the council.

Glyn Hall, director of housing and environmental health, said: "We are at a defining moment for council housing and over the next ten months we will decide what direction we go in and so will our tenants."