HOMELESS families in Worcester will no longer be placed in bed and breakfast hotels under new proposals by the city council.

The authority wants to end the culture of "moving homeless families around" by making it a priority to keep them in one place.

"Putting families in B&B hotels places them under an awful lot of pressure and we want to do all we can to ease that burden on them," said housing officer Kate Bailey. "It doesn't help anyone to keep moving homeless families around and the funding we are to receive should enable us to focus on ensuring homeless families with children are no longer placed in B&B hotels, except in emergencies, and even then it should be for no longer than six weeks."

The council has been awarded £115,000 in funding for each of the next two years to help tackle homelessness.

It has already confirmed money will be made available to the Maggs Day Centre and the Worcester Rough Sleepers Project.

The Worcester Housing and Benefits Centre will also receive a portion of the cash.

Cabinet member for housing Coun Martin Clarke said: "We are keen to provide individuals with opportunities to lift themselves up.

"There is always an issue about balancing scarce financial and staff resources, but I'm sure most people agree that we are taking the problems seriously and on the whole doing a good job."