North West councils given funding for better housing options
Three North West councils and their partner housing associations will be given a share of the £1m allocation into housing options, it has been announced today.
Housing Minister Iain Wright said tenants will be able to have a greater say over their housing options and where they wish to live and councils will be able to offer greater choice, after successfully bidding for funding to develop their Choice Based Lettings schemes.
Those councils in the North West benefiting from the funding include:
- Greater Manchester
- Cumbria
- Chorley
The money from the Government's Regional Choice Fund means a total over 80% of local authorities will have CBL schemes in place once these new schemes go live.
Nearly £20m has been allocated for CBL schemes over the last seven years.
In addition, Chorley is being funded to join an existing scheme involving South Ribble and Preston, which has not itself received funding from CLG.
The funding announced today will also develop the services of the Greater Manchester pilot scheme, Pinpoint, which launched this July.
Pinpoint offers housing choices across Greater Manchester and the increased funding will enable them to offer additional features, including a sub-regional accessible housing register.
The register will help disabled people across the Greater Manchester region get the housing they need, and enable social landlords to make the best use of their adapted and accessible housing.
The Government remains on track to achieve its 2010 target for all local authorities to offer choice in social housing.
The proposed schemes announced today will start to come on stream from the end of 2009.
