[harwood red]

The comment you made about swaps is partly right Margaret, what is actually happening is as follows:

Twin Valley have been operating a choice based lettings scheme called B-with-us since 2002, we advertise the properties available in the local press, round the local area and on the internet, people would have joined the scheme and received a membership number... each week they look through the advert and if they see a property or properties they would be interested in and they meet the criteria for that home they put their name forward for it...

The Neighbourhood officer for each home would run a shortlist of all the people who have expressed an interest and the person who has been a member the longest is offered the property... the only people who can go above earliest membership date are those with priority status but many homes are advertised with the label... letting based on earliest membership date only so priority would not be considered for those homes.

From next year Twin valley, Hyndburn Homes, Pendle Housing, many housing associations in East Lancs and I think Rossendale are joining to make the scheme sub regional...which means all the homes would be advertised under the B-with-us banner..

Some of the policy and priority criteria will also be changing...anyone who are on waiting list for any of these companies will be moved to one central list but keep the date they first applied for rehousing.

So there may well be options for housing swaps from one area to the next

hope that clears things up and if you are not on any waiting list, get on one asap