A NEW procedure to house homeless sex offenders in the area is being developed by Malvern Hills District Council.

The Council says it has experienced difficulties in re-housing homeless people who are convicted sex offenders and it realises the risk to the community should be managed.

Colin Davis, director of housing at MHDC, said the difficulty is knowing how and where to place them.

"If we have someone presented as homeless who is a sex offender we still have a legal requirement to house them, especially if they are vulnerable," he said.

"We are looking for a procedure which would deal with that situation and set up communications between those people involved such as the probation service, the police, the community safety officer and of course the housing agencies," he said.

But he said the Council would not normally be under any obligation to tell local people about the location of a rehoused sex offender.

"The Portsmouth debacle and the News of the World campaign have shown that there is a danger of driving them underground and then nobody knows where they are.

"I don't want to suggest that it is a major problem in the Malvern Hills area," he added.

Mr Davis said not all sex offenders would be housed by the local authority, those with private means could buy or rent their own homes and live legitimately where they wished.

The Council expects the new Protocol to be in place by the end of the year.