Bristol Live readers have been left shocked by the news that over 1,200 council houses are set to be sold off in a drastic “fire sale”, with two additional council housing projects being scrapped as part of City Hall’s bombshell plans to balance their finances.

Bristol City Council is also looking at postponing £17million worth of tower block refurbishments, delaying £3.9million worth of new sprinkler systems in high-rises and pushing back some fire safety assessments by at least one year.

The council is contemplating pulling out of an agreement with its own housing company, Goram Homes, and developers Vistry for the construction of 135 council homes at New Fosseway and Dovercourt Road. This comes after the unexpected decision in September to drop Goram’s developments at Baltic Wharf on the Harbourside and a section of the vast Hengrove Park neighbourhood.

Although the homes will still be constructed, the hope is that a social housing provider will step in to purchase and manage them instead of the council. Green council leaders have pointed out that the housing revenue account (HRA), which is exclusively used for council housing, is projected to face an £8million deficit by 2025/26, necessitating these cuts.

The local authority is under pressure to address a significant backlog of repairs following orders from the government’s Regulator of Social Housing last year, which highlighted “serious failings” in the council’s management of its housing stock. This situation has forced the redirection of millions previously earmarked for property improvements to instead concentrate on satisfying the regulator’s requirements and ensuring homes meet the necessary standards.

Cllr Paul Goggin, housing lead, has blasted the Greens’ proposals, saying: “The Greens’ plans are not only morally bankrupt – they’re financially incompetent. They are carrying out a fire sale of Bristol’s public assets, flogging them off to the highest bidder. I have no reason to believe they won’t do the same with our council homes.”

Commenter BS8GR8 says: “The new Green Led administration are having to make some extremely difficult choices having now seen the full facts of the dire straits of BCC finances. Their mismanagement of the council owned housing stock over numerous years in power has led to this, the focus has to be on repairs to the existing housing stock, unfortunately the scale of the issue and the cost of rectification is much higher than expected. That means some pre-planned repairs have to be spread over multiple years. The cost of repairing some older properties is very high and it does make sense to sell off these properties to ensure money is spent wisely.”

Jonty2 points out: “So the Council can’t even deliver housing on their own (Goram’s) land now and are just going to sell sell sell and take more affordable rental properties out of the Councils ownership forever. This is a shocking indictment of the Councils Regeneration Managers, housing leads and Goram.”

Blackbeard83 replies: “This is what happens when central government demolishes council funding for over 10 years. Then get hit by inflation on top and an aging population needing social care.”

Qd50 states: “This is long overdue. Lots of council housing is now worth a considerable amount and selling them off will free up significant sums. It will also reduce the concentration of council tenants in the old estates and improve the area as a better class of occupant moves in.”

Eastoneden retorts: “What do you mean by a better class? A private landlord?!”

Downtowngirl adds: “So much for Starmer and Co saying they are going to build, build, build when our Council is sell, sell, sell. Look after local families and build more houses, not HMO’s and student flats, its family homes Bristol is desperate for.”

Mmoore85 writes: “As someone who’s been on the housing list desperate to move to an accessible property that suits mine and my child’s disabilities, I’m appalled but not surprised. I’ve been strung along for years now and was told in April that our current council home couldn’t be adapted so we’d have to move and they’d rehome us urgently. Yet as I said that was ages ago and I doubt we’ll move before we’ve been on the urgent list for a year. Now I’ve seen this, I’m even more scared it’ll never happen.”

Muttsnuts is disgusted: “We have a housing crisis in Bristol caused by high rents and lack of council housing. So they sell off the council housing to landlords to rent at inflated rents. Great solution!”

Speckledove agrees: “It’s just a game of monopoly.”

How do you feel about this attempt to balance the books by BCC? Is it safe to delay tower block refurbishments? Have your say in our comments section.