SEDGEFIELD Borough Council is to stop maintaining and repairing cookers and refrigerators it has provided to some of its tenants.

Historically, the council has provided appliances in some houses. Of 3,600 homes, 1,722 have a cooker fitted by the council and 225 have a fridge.

The annual cost of replacing and maintaining the appliances is approximately £25,000 a year.

A report to the council's cabinet said under Best Value policy, it was difficult to justify why some tenants were entitled to appliances and others were not.

So a decision has been taken to hand over all cookers and fridges to existing tenants, with the exception of those provided in 400 sheltered accommodation units.

A council spokesman said: "The present policy causes confusion because it is only delivered to a percentage of tenants.

"To provide the service to everyone would incur greater costs, so it was decided to give them their appliances free of charge, and they will now be responsible for repairs and servicing."

But the decision has come in for strong criticism from former councillor Tom Conley.

Mr Conley, a councillor for more than 25 years until 1998, described the decision as "a travesty".

He said: "I'm really upset about this because they haven't consulted people about it.

"Some old person could be faced with a bill for £70 for a cooker, which they had not budgeted for because of the historic nature of this concession.