Aylesbury Vale together with the other 3 Buckinghamshire District Councils (Chiltern DC, South Bucks DC and Wycombe DC) have secured £100,000 of government funding to launch a project that will change the way people access social housing in the county. Working in partnership with our key Housing Association partners, Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust, Paradigm Housing, L&Q Beacon and Catalyst Housing Group, we are developing a sub-regional approach to a project called Choice Based Lettings (CBL). Other housing associations partners are also planning to join the scheme.

Under CBL, vacant council and housing association homes are advertised for rent in a style similar to an estate agent. Although CBL cannot increase the amount of social housing becoming available, customers would have more choice and control over where they live. There are also plans to include shared ownership properties and to offer the service to private landlords in the future.

Similar schemes have already been increasingly and successfully implemented across the country and it is hoped that the Bucks Sub-Regional Scheme will help make the process of applying for a home simpler, fairer and easier to understand. Although the model of the Bucks scheme has yet to be established, CBL is likely to involve replacing the current points based systems and introducing banding of applicants according to their housing needs. One example used on other schemes involves people being placed into one of the following bands indicating their priority: urgent, high, medium and low. Typically, the property would be offered to the person who has shown an interest in the vacancy and who is in the highest band, and who has waited the longest time.

People who would like social housing would register as they do now. However, rather than wait for a property to be offered to them, they would put themselves forward for any available properties being advertised.

The partnership hopes to have the scheme up and running during 2009.

Plans include a programme of events to publicise the scheme and to find out the views and opinions of local people – details of the events will be advertised in the council offices, our website and to our Housing register applicants.

Date Updated: 07/03/08