Medway Council has joined Kent Homechoice to create the biggest sub-regional choice based lettings scheme in the UK.

Kent Homechoice is now available in all council areas in Kent. The scheme now has 15 strategic authorities and 20 housing association partners.

Medway Council launched its stand-alone scheme in February 2006. Members registered for housing with Medway are now able to use Kent Homechoice and bid on available properties across the county.

Kent and Medway combined handled just under 350,000 bids last year from more than 36,000 housing applicants - leading to some 6,139 successful lets.

Kent Homechoice recently announced it will add the LHS Worklessness Manager to its portfolio of services for housing applicants.

This means that housing officers will be able to point unemployed applicants towards professional help to get back to work in any of the  local authorities that form the Kent partnership.

Ashford Borough Council will be the first of the 13 local authorities to go live with the system as the first stage in the roll-out of the system across the scheme.