DORSET County Council is facing a backlog of £87 million in property repairs.

And most of the money needed is for maintenance of school buildings.

Corporate property officer Clive Tee told the council audit and scrutiny committee that having different amounts of money available each year had made it difficult to reduce the backlog.

He said an average local authority had 80 per cent of its properties in 'good' or 'moderate' condition but only 20 per cent met this standard in Dorset.

He added: "For a while we started to make progress and now we have tailed off.

"We are keeping a lid on the problem, basically."

Three months ago the Audit Commission told Dorset County Council that its estate was in a poor condition and getting worse.

Coun Spencer Flower said: "Sometimes investment to save is the direction to go in.

"This might need the cabinet to look at this and see if they can put some extra funding in."

Coun Alan Havelock, cabinet member for corporate services and resources, said: "No building is in the state that it is going to fall down, but there are some schools with leaking roofs or with windows which don't close properly. They are the ones we are prioritising."

He said the problem had partly arisen from school governors using maintenance budgets for other things.

"When you're short of money, maintenance doesn't come top of your list," he said.

Dorset County Council will have carried out a condition review of its properties by the autumn.

Coun Havelock said the council would be working to address the backlog in next year's budget.

He said: "The idea is to put more money into maintenance next year to deal with all the high priority requirements.

"We have simply got to reduce this backlog."

The council has set up the Modernising Schools Programme to address school refurbishment across the county. It says this will help reduce the bulk of the backlog.

Some £500,000 has also been set aside for backlog work on non-school premises such as libraries, day centres and offices.