AN £8m package has been approved to pay for improvements to council homes in Sedgefield over the next two years.

It is the first major investment by Sedgefield Borough Council since residents voted against the council's plans to transfer its homes to a housing association.

The £8.4m Housing Capital and Improvement Work programme was approved by the cabinet on April 26, but Sedgefield Council said more money would have been available, had residents backed the transfer of homes to Sedgefield Housing, a non-profit making housing organisation, set up by the council and Sunderland Housing Group.

Colin Steel, from Sedgefield Council, said: "Following the No vote and the loss of the additional millions of pounds of investment that the transfer would have provided for our tenants, we have structured a capital programme and associated procurement strategy for repairs and improvements that will ensure that our properties meet the Government's minimum Decent Homes Standard by the target date of December 2010. We remain on programme to achieve that requirement."

Works identified in the programme include £4m being spent on central heating upgrading, £2m towards kitchen and bathroom replacements and more than £700,000 on re-wiring.

Money will also be spent on re-roofing, disabled persons adaptations, external redecoration and upgrading the alarm systems.

The council said as a result of the No vote, it has not been able to access the £67.17m funding that would have been available to them over the next ten years.

"As a result of the vote, in the past two years we have had to send back to Central Government £4.67m of our tenants' rent money for distribution to other councils," said Mr Steel.

"We are prevented by the housing subsidy rules from keeping that money and investing it to improve the homes and housing services available to our tenants. We could have retained that money and used it for the benefit of tenants, had the transfer been supported."