Ministers have agreed to consider Glasgow City Council's two pronged plan to unburden the authority of its housing debt.

The council wants to pass the £900,000 debt on to taxpayers throughout Britain.

And it wants to transfer its 99,000 properties to a city-wide housing trust.

The debt has been run up in the years since the war as the council borrowed money to invest in housing.

The BBC's James Shaw: "Properties already in disrepair"

City representatives say that changes in legislation, including tenants' right to buy and the transfer of council property to housing associations has exacerbated the debt.

And lack of money means that many of the properties are already in disrepair.

Now the government is funding a feasibility study into council's proposals - but it has given no guarantees that it will go along with the scheme.

Glasgow City Council's Director of Housing David Comley told BBC News Online that the council borrowed money to carry out improvements as well as build more homes.

He added: "We have lost a lot of housing stock through transfers to housing associations and the tennant's right to buy.

"There is about £4bn of housing debt in Scotland as a whole - we have about a quarter of that.

"What we are basically looking to do is for it to be transferred from the rent payer to the tax payer in general.

"And we want to transfer the stock to new organisations so that we can access private investment.

"We can't do that unless the government transfers the debt from the rent payer to the tax payer.

"The government has said that if we can produce a value for money proposal, they will be prepared to consider it."