WAVERLEY councillors have agreed the council should rule out continuing to own and manage its housing stock in order to ensure £78 million worth of repairs.
Every councillor at a special meeting on Monday night agreed to discard the option of keeping and managing is own housing stock and instead consult tenants further on two alternative options: the wholesale transfer of its homes, or the transfer of just their management. They also ruled out a private finance initiative to fund the repairs as unsuitable.
The council says that only by selling its homes to a housing association or by transferring their management to an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) can it afford to bring its 5,620 homes up to the government's decent homes standard and fund other "essential" repairs.
In the case of housing associations, this is because they can borrow money with more freedom than can councils.
Waverley has surveyed tenants to find out what they think and the results are inconclusive, with differing levels of support expressed for stock retention, stock transfer and the ALMO option, depending on the question asked.
Critical tenants such as Jez Hyman and Donald Simpson, both of Farnham, believe the council's main motivation is the £40 million capital receipt it can expect if it sells its housing stock. The council will be able to use half of that money to fund new affordable housing.
They say the Labour Party, at its conference this week, stated that councils would be able to borrow with the same freedom as housing associations.
Waverley's director of housing, David January, said he had not read what the Labour Party had agreed, but said he would be "very surprised" if that were the case.
Mr January also described as "unlikely" claims that members of Waverley's tenants panel have a vested interest in stock transfer because they would become members, possibly paid, of a new management board.
He also rebuffed the suggestion that he would be appointed as the chief executive of a new housing association, pointing out that in Rushmoor and Reigate and Banstead the posts were advertised and not awarded to former council housing department heads.
Mr January said that at the last Audit Commission assessment in December, Waverley's housing service was given one out of a possible three stars, but with "good prospects for improvement", which, he believes, would translate into a two-star rating now.
He conceded that there had been a "legacy of under-investment" in the council's housing stock, but said that it is councillors who make policy decisions, Mr January simply manages the budget.