A VINTAGE car owner from King’s Stanley is furious over Stroud District Council’s plans to sell garages.

Ian Wood, 49, lives in a council house and has rented a garage from SDC for the past 15 years, which is home to his 1970 Morris Minor.

“My wife passed away last year and I haven’t got a great deal in my life really,” he told the SNJ. “I’ve had the car for 15 years and it’s been on the road for three.

“If they take this from me, I’ll have to sell the car because there’s no place for it to be stored. I can’t afford to buy it and I’ve had no say in the matter.”

Mr Wood has started a petition to stop the garages from being sold and has 40 signatures so far.

He has been told that he must have his garage empty by Monday, July 24.

Garages across Stroud district will be sold over the next four years to raise money for the council.

A SDC spokesman said: “Councils are under increasing financial pressure so we have to make the most of our existing assets to improve and increase the amount of housing available.

“One of the areas we are looking at is our garage sites, which give us options such as selling them off and using the money to build new homes either on those sites or elsewhere in the district.

“An example of this happened last year in Fishers Road in Berkeley when we built four brand new homes for rent on the site of an under-used block of garages.

“Of the council’s 765 garages, almost half are empty and many of them need significant repairs which are a further drain on our finances.

“Any garages that are sold will be advertised on our website stroud.gov.uk.”

The council said that the garages could be sold for anywhere between £2,000 and £10,000, and that only 414 are currently being rented.

The spokesman added: “With 2,700 people on the property waiting list, we need to find a way of building more homes.

“We are not taking all of them at the same time, we will stagger it over the next three or four years.”

For more information about the garage sales click here.