NEW legislation through the Homelessness Reduction Act comes into force in April and Pendle Council has been awarded over £60,000 to offset the extra costs of implementing the act.

The funding, which is for three years, will pay for a range of homelessness prevention measures including help to find alternative accommodation for people at risk and a new database to implement the more complex legal system.

Councillors at the recent Executive meeting looked at the new duties which councils in England will need to take on to help prevent homelessness.

Councillor Asjad Mahmood who leads on housing in Pendle said: “We provide support to help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, working with a range of organisations.

“We work with social housing provider B-with-us and we’ve agreed to try out a new system to speed up the process to prevent homelessness from happening.

“We’re piloting this to support people who are in a vulnerable situation and need to find housing more quickly.

“After six months we’ll assess its impact.”

Council leader, Cllr Mohammed Iqbal urged local people to contact the council if they see anyone sleeping rough.

He said: “We want to make sure that anyone sleeping rough can get the help and support they need to get off the streets.”

Anyone who sees a rough sleeper in Pendle should contact the council’s community protection officer on 01282 661280.

“We’ll need to know where you’ve seen someone and a brief description of the person so that we can try and find them and help them,” added Councillor Mahmood.