Armchair critics of Coventry City Council are being urged to get their facts straight before complaining, rather than peddling “second-hand rubbish”.

Next week the full council will make two decisions that will affect thousands of people in the city, and councillors are encouraging the public to come along and watch.

The transfer of 20,000 houses to a private company is to be rubber-stamped, and there will be a debate on the single status issue that has affected 11,000 council employees.

The council’s entire stock of houses is to be transferred to a new housing association called Whitefriars to allow investment and the backlog of repairs to be cleared.

Critics say the council should keep ownership of the houses themselves and persuade the government to pay for the repairs.

The councillors argue that the “over-hanging debt”, the amount owed by the council to the government for the houses, cannot be cleared any other way.

Single status has been a controversial issue seeking to level out employees’ pay. Until recently the council insisted the restructuring had to be done on a “cost-neutral” basis.

This means that there should be no increase to the overall wage bill, and some workers faced salary cuts of thousands of pounds.

The policy was abandoned following demonstrations by workers and heavy Labour losses in the May elections, and it will be formally ditched on Thursday.

Cllr Phil Townshend, cabinet member (Service Co-ordination), who is responsible for encouraging community participation in civic affairs, urged people to come to the meeting to witness the proceedings.

He said:

“What Coventry City Council does affects peoples’ lives and they are quick enough to complain if we don’t get it right, but hardly anyone can be bothered to turn up to watch what we are doing.

“The armchair critics need to get out of their armchairs and onto the benches of the council chamber’s public gallery to hear the truth, and to see the business of the council conducted in their name.

”People have limited grounds for criticism of they can’t be bothered to turn out occasionally to see the business of the city council conducted.

“Criticism is all right so long as it is informed criticism rather than rubbish peddled second-hand.”