A defiant pensioner has vowed to go to jail rather than pay more than £500 for her neighbours' new windows.

Battling 77-year-old Joyce Marshall is one of nine private home owners each faced with the £563 bill for improvements to their neighbours' Council flats.

The nine are furious because the Council tenants themselves will not have to pay a penny.

Some of the private owners have already paid to have their own windows replaced.

The £41,000 scheme at Bradford council's Myrtle Court in Bingley - where some tenants have bought their own flats - will begin on Monday to replace existing metal frames in 29 rented flats with u-PVC windows.

But Mrs Marshall, who has had some new frames fitted, insists she will not pay a penny towards the work from her pension.

She said: "It's disgusting. If they put it on my service charge of £146 a year. I shall not pay it. I won't pay a penny. I am really annoyed about it.

"Why should I pay hundreds of pounds for other people and starve myself when I'm a pensioner? I will go to jail first."

And her friend Marjorie Cochrane, 76, who replaced all her windows at a cost of around £1,200, added: "I don't want to pay. My late husband George and I saved to buy our home and I don't see why we should pay this. I have not got that sort of money."

Chairman of Bradford Council's housing services sub-committee, Councillor Jim O'Neill, said: "We sympathise with the leaseholders' concerns and are reviewing the situation after Shipley MP Chris Leslie brought it to our attention.

"The situation has come about as a result of a previous Tory Government's Right to Buy legislation and we are hamstrung by that.

"The report will take two to three months to complete and will involve the district auditor and legal and housing representatives."

In a letter to Mrs Cochrane's son Stephen, Shipley MP Chris Leslie said: "I do not agree with the Council's policy of levying a charge on those private leaseholders who have already undertaken such improvements independently. Unfortunately you are not alone in raising this anomaly with me."

And he added: "I have had correspondence with the Council on this matter in the past to challenge their view that because windows are supposedly part of the external structure of a Council building, they retain the right to make charges in relation to its repair."

Bingley Conservative councillor Colin Gill said he was outraged by the charges. "I have written to Mr O'Neill expressing my concerns at this deplorable action by the Council against vulnerable and needy senior citizens," he said.

And Ilkley councillor Martin Smith, Conservative representative on the housing committee, added: "If someone is improving their property, they should not be penalised for it when they have taken on that responsibility. This work starts on Monday and it is unreasonable for them to be told so late in the day.

"It's brutal and would appear to be unfair and unreasonable though they do have a right under the law to a loan.

"The authority is advised that they have a duty to charge under the law - though other authorities do not always charge - and have to resolve the problem with the district auditor."

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