CHILDREN whose families have been made homeless will no longer be forced to live in west Wiltshire's B&Bs.

West Wiltshire District Council has ended the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families with children, five months ahead of the Government's March deadline.

There are currently 26 single people and couples being housed in B&Bs compared to 81 in April, and no children.

Cllr Michael Mounde, the council's housing portfolio holder, said: "It has been very unfortunate that the first experience of the world for some children has been the inside of a B&B.

"Thankfully, in west Wiltshire, we have now been able to bring that practice to an end.

"Our homelessness team, with the help of Government money, has done a magnificent job in bringing these figures down and my grateful thanks goes to them."

The council had two targets for ending the use of B&B accommodation: to stop using them for families except in an emergency by 2004 and to stop all use by 2006.

Cllr Mounde said: "We are continuing to work to get everyone out of B&B accommodation as soon as we can one element of that is to see what we can do to help prevent homelessness occurring in the first place."