TENANTS in east Cleveland have lost the latest round in a long-running campaign to get the local authority to replace their defective windows.

Elderly people in Fenton Street and Shepherd Court, Boosbeck, have had a long-running battle with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in a bid to get the authority to repair the windows.

The houses were built in the early 1980s with a form of glazing requiring glass panes to be removed to be cleaned - several of the residents have suffered accidents from glass cuts.

The tenants claim the council built their hopes up eight years ago to glaze the windows, but the work has never been done.

Last summer, the residents sent a letter to the council to ask for the work to be done, but without success.

Council housing in Redcar and Cleveland is the subject of a secret ballot on whether to transfer ownership and management of 12,000 homes across the borough to a new not-for-profit company which can access money for repairs which the council, under current legislation, cannot.

Councillor Steve Kay, who represents east Cleveland, is supporting the pensioners.

He said: "There have been quite a lot of promises given to the people by the promoters of this company and I just hope that these promises are fulfilled especially with the particular problem of the windows in Boosbeck and other parts of east Cleveland."

Councillor David Walsh, leader of the council, said: "If tenants vote for the transfer it would mean a very large scale programme of house repairs and renewals which will be far greater than anything the council could finance under present arrangements.

"Obviously, the windows at Boosbeck would have to have their priority investigated."

In a letter to residents, the Local Government Ombudsman said the council had agreed to remove the panes and clean them quarterly.

She said the promise to replace the windows in 1993 was conditional on the £10,000 needed being available in the budget. She said she accepted that the council had not had this money available, and therefore would not be taking the investigation further.