Liverpool council has put forward plans to spend more than £600m refurbishing 40% of its housing stock over the next 30 years.
The council wants to transfer the ownership and management of 13,500 properties in the north and east of the city to three housing associations.

The proposals have been set out in a 50-page document, Your Home, Your Future, Your Choice, that has been sent out to tenants, who must vote on the proposals in March.

If most of them give the thumbs-up to the scheme, Cobalt Housing will take over 6500 council homes and spend £300m improving the homes. A third of this spending would come in the first five years.

Berry Bridge Housing would invest £200m refurbishing 4000 homes, and Lee Valley Housing would spend £137m on 3500 homes.

Many of them will be given new roofs, windows and doors.

Councillor Richard Kemp, portfolio holder for housing, said the move offered residents the best possible deal. He said: “We have consulted extensively over several months about the best way forward for council housing in the city. The transfer is the only way of raising the millions needed to make tenants’ homes fit for the 21st century.”

Council leader Mike Storey added that the repair of council housing throughout the UK has been underfunded by central government for decades.

If the proposals get the go-ahead from tenants the transfer will take place in October. Liverpool is one of several cities, including Sheffield and Birmingham, where plans of this kind have been announced.