An angry East Morton resident says the only way she will leave her home is in a coffin. Pensioner Winifred Deacon was responding to the shock news that her house and 17 others on the Carr Bank council estate will be demolished.

"I've been in my house for 50 years; I'm not going anywhere," she said.

Mrs Deacon's outburst came at a special meeting at East Morton School last Thursday night, attended by around 30 residents, as Cllr Kris Hopkins, Bradford's executive member for health and housing, confirmed the demolition plan.

He refuted claims that the council was pandering to developers on the nearby Swine Lane site not wanting a council estate to lower their property values. "That is not the case," he said, "And if there was a wand I could wave I would wave it."

An independent structural engineer's survey deemed the houses structurally unsound and recommended they were repaired or modernised within the year.

Cllr Hopkins said all council properties were being checked as part of the council's plans to transfer housing stock to community trusts run by tenants, housing experts and council employees.

"The council does not have the money to fix these houses," said Cllr Hopkins. "We are looking at £34,000 per house and we don't have the money to do it. So we've got to find a solution. It's bad news."

Three of Carr Bank's 28 houses have been bought by tenants and others have been modernised.

No immediate solution was offered, but Keighley housing manager Harry Whittle said: "People can move into other council accommodation or whatever replaces the demolition.

"It could be housing association tenancies."

These may be 50 per cent ownership, requiring tenants to pay 50 per cent rent and 50 per cent mortgage, and the homes would take two or three years to build.

Another option was a new home on the Swine Lane site, where a percentage of its properties will be 'affordable housing.'

One woman said she was told it would take 18 months to modernise her home by replacing its concrete pillars with steel. But she claimed it took seven and a half years for the work to be done.

She was not convinced by council claims it would take two to three years to build a new home.

Others said there had been many problems with repairs to the houses over the years, and now felt cheated by this news.

Alex Brown of the council tenants' group Keighley Alliance said: "If the houses do have to come down in a year, rather than give the land to a housing association, let the land lie until the transfer goes through then let the tenants build their houses."

Housing officers pledged to arrange one-to-one visits with every resident to discuss their individual circumstances.