A CALL has been made for the cabinet member responsible for housing to step down after revelations that £1.2 million was overspent on council houses.

Members of Stroud District Council took the opportunity at their annual general meeting to grill Cllr Francis Roden, cabinet member for housing, on the gross overspend of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

One councillor even called for her to step down in response to the revelations. Cllr Tom Williams (Labour) said: "I think it is time Cllr Roden should step down to be replaced by someone who can do the job."

At the meeting held last Thursday, the council’s chief executive David Hagg confirmed that the bill for repairs and maintenance to the council’s housing stock had run into £1.2 million for the financial year just ended, against a figure of £395,000 reported to the council as recently as March.

He announced that there would be three strands to his action.

The first would be a "far reaching" review by external financial consultants KPMG to identify any "systemic failures", not just covering housing but all financial monitoring and reporting systems in the council.

The second is a review by Tribal, a housing consultancy firm, to look at the way the council runs its housing stock and then further "advice and assistance" from the Audit Commission.

Mr Hagg said: "The council owes this to tenants and staff, all of whom will be consulted about what are likely to be inevitable and necessary changes to the housing service."

The cost of the three independent reviews has not been released by the council.

At the council’s AGM members decided to call an extraordinary meeting of the council to discuss the overspend, such was the severity and importance of the situation.

Cllr Chris Brine (labour) said: "This is a huge, huge problem and we need to give it the top priority it needs.

"When I first found out about this I could not speak for a minute, I was just so shocked about it."

Cllr Roden said: "I was as shocked about this situation as anyone. Of course it is highly unsatisfactory.

"Fortunately our tenants have been the net beneficiaries of the overspend."