YOUR article 'Cash cut for run down estates' (LET, January 19) was wrong. It caused a lot of unnecessary worry among the people it misinformed.

There has been no change in policy. The council agreed at the housing and community services committee on September 16 that while we would prefer to remain a social landlord, we would also seek a place on the Government's Annual Stock Disposal Programme.

Nothing has changed since. A special meeting of the housing and community services committee was held on December 1 to approve the bid document, which needed to be submitted to the Government by December 4.

The bid was sent and we await the outcome, which, we understand, has been delayed until early March due to the number of submissions received.

However, there are still outstanding issues to be clarified on stock disposal, which may mean it is not prudent to transfer the housing stock.

It is, of course, quite possible that the Government will not approve our bid, which is in competition for a limited number of places on the programme.

Finally, the decision on whether to transfer the stock is not the council's - tenants must vote in favour of a transfer in a secret ballot.

Under these circumstances, we believe it is wise for the council to plan how best to maintain its houses if a transfer does not go ahead. The report to the Housing and Community Services Committee on January 20 merely informed members of the methodology being used to develop a stock retention strategy. A stock retention strategy will enable us to take a balanced view on the way forward, whatever the Government's decision on our bid.

The Tories have made up their minds to transfer the housing stock. They have no strategy for what to do if such a transfer does not go ahead.

We are determined that the council will have strategies in place to do the best for our houses and our tenants, no matter what may come.

We leave it to your readers to judge which approach is driven by the 'ideological fundamentals' alleged in your editorial of the same issue.

We repeat: no decisions will be made about the future of the council's housing stock until the council receives a response from the Government in March about our application.

COUNCILLOR MOHAMMED KHAN (Chair), COUNCILLOR DAVE HOLLINGS (Vice-chair) and COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMITTEE, Blackburn with Darwen Council.

FOOTNOTE: Our story did not say policy had been changed. We did highlight a report which suggested new methods of allocating cash to housing estates which have not been made public before and would represent a change of policy if implemented - Editor.

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