RADICAL plans have been revealed to deal with Durham City's growing housing crisis by selling off dozens of plots of council-owned land for development and pumping millions of pounds back into council and community services.

The ambitious five-year plan, which could transform the face of the city centre and have a major impact on surrounding villages, will go before the city council's cabinet for discussion on Monday.

Among the main proposals are:

* closing the council's Byland Lodge offices, along with other smaller council offices, and selling the £3m city centre site for redevelopment

* building a new £4m out-of-town council office at Meadowfield and updating the council's computer systems

* selling off pockets of land in the city centre, including £1.2m of land in West Milburngate, £250,000 in Closegate, near the proposed Radisson hotel development, and a £150,000 plot behind Fowlers Yard.

* selling off dozens of smaller plots of land in the villages surrounding the city for housing, including some to the Durham Villages Regeneration Company (DVRC) for low-cost starter homes, some to housing associations for social housing and some to private developers, which is expected to bring in a total of £17m

* diverting some of the cash to build the city's long-awaited £5.8m swimming pool, new community centres next to Abbey Leisure Centre and at Sherburn Hill and setting up pots of cash under the Flourishing Communities programme for further improvements to the former coalfield villages.

Council leader Fraser Reynolds said: "The financial stability of the council now allows us to plan for the next five years. It is a bold, imaginative and confident strategy. This programme will deliver our vision for the city."

The blueprint has been drawn up in response to the city's chronic housing shortage, which has taken a dramatic turn for the worse in recent years due to the house price boom that has priced many starters out of the market.

The number of people on the council house waiting list has almost doubled in less than three years, up from 1,815 in October 2002 to 3,528 at present - while right-to-buy has seen the council's housing stock shrink at an average rate of 200 homes a year down to 6,500, of which as many as 1,000 are one-bedroom bungalows.

The plan will allow for the building of at least 500 new houses in the district. While many of these new homes are likely to be build by private developers, the majority of which will either be social housing for rent, or built by the DVRC, the company set up as a partnership by the city council and Keepmoat plc.

The authority says some of the housing built by the DVRC will have prices pegged in the region of £110,000 to keep them within the price range of first-time buyers, while more than £5m income from sales will be ploughed back into the council's funds.

The cash generated by land sales has already been earmarked for a number of regeneration proposals around the district - with further sales likely to be identified in coming months.

Among the most high profile is at Newton Hall, where the existing outdated community centre and bowling green are to close and 38 houses are to be built. The site is thought to be worth £1.6m, much of which will go towards building a new £860,000 community centre and £300,000 bowling club at the nearby Abbey Leisure Centre.

Elsewhere, a two-acre site at Sherburn Hill is to be developed, with £400,000 going to provide a new community centre, while at Bowburn two sites have been allocated for the development of about 130 houses, which will bring in more than £5m to the council - around half of which will be spent on improvements to the area.

The council's cabinet will discuss the proposals at a specially-convened meeting at the Gala Theatre.