BURY has scored a significant success in its bid to fill its empty council homes.

In the last 18 months the number of empty properties has dropped below the target figure set by the Government.

However, although the figure has dropped from nearly 350 back in December 1999 to just over 170 now, housing bosses are determined to cut the figure more.

A new range of procedures, together with an alternative allocations policy, are being drawn up and will be implemented soon.

One of the success stories, the empty property telephone hot-line is to be continued.

The hot-line, which has been used by more than 1,500 people in the last nine months resulted in 270 empty properties being directly let.

Bury Council's housing spokesman, Councillor John Smith, said: "While we still have some way to go, we have made significant in-roads and expect to do even better." Several years ago it was recognised that empty properties could become a real problem for us and that is when we set about implementing the necessary changes to tackle it. and learning from those policies we have already implemented, , with the other changes in the pipeline we