Amsterdam is to press ahead with plans to sanction a new brothel in the city’s red light district which will be run by sex workers themselves.

Mayor Eberhard van der Laan commissioned a feasibility study earlier this year and the project can now go ahead, the Parool says on Thursday.

The council said a ‘socially-aware’ consortium of parties with ‘property expertise’ has been found to buy the four properties where the brothel will be located but did not give further details. Enough women who would like to work in the brothel have also come forward, the paper says.

The properties have a combined 15 windows and are currently owned by the city council’s property arm Stadsgoed NV. According to the Parool earlier this year, it bought the buildings from red light district lynchpin Charles Geerts in 2007 for a reported €25m after refusing to grant him a licence to operate brothels.

‘If the experiment is a success, the Eigen Raam (own window) project will make a substantial contribution to a safe and professional Amsterdam prostitution sector,’ the council statement said.

The council will not be involved in running the business which will operate as a foundation, the statement stressed.

Van der Laan also said that 40 of the 83 brothel windows in the district which had been scheduled for closure will remain open after all.

The city has already bought up red light properties containing 126 windows but the new coalition council agreed last year to reduce the budget for reducing the sex industry presence.