The council has bought five properties in the South Hams

South Hams District Council has spent about �600,000 buying five two and three-bedroom houses in Ivybridge, Totnes and Dartmouth.

The move has been taken to reduce the number of people being housed in bed and breakfast accommodation while they await permanent homes.

The money has come from the council's capital receipts from council house sales.

Council officers faced a number of bureaucratic difficulties in pursuing the house purchase scheme.

We are probably the first council in the country to make use of these new regulations, but other councils are certainly following suit Andrew Fiske, South Hams District Council

The council had to get special clearance from the office of the deputy prime minister.

It can now buy up to 50 houses to accommodate the homeless.

The council's move comes as government seeks to phase out the use of bed and breakfasts as temporary accommodation, except as an emergency measure and then only for a maximum of six weeks.

But Andrew Fiske, from South Hams Council, says they had to persuade the government to give them permission to buy the homes.

"We had to push quite hard at Whitehall to get them to remove the red tape.

"It has taken us about nine months and I think we are probably the first council in the country to make use of these new regulations, but other councils are certainly following suit.

"We are all under pressure from government to reduce our use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families to nil by March 2004 and we are trying to achieve that."