Council chiefs say they will try to encourage more landlords and housing associations to allow pets as part of efforts to review a policy introduced to help homeless animal lovers.

The death of John Chadwick in 2017 sparked Maidstone Borough Council into rubber-stamping a scheme meaning people could keep their animals in temporary accommodation.

The 52-year-old had to give up his dogs Theo and Tinkerbell and a cat, Gizmo, to find a new home at a bed and breakfast, but was then found dead just ten days later.

An inquest heard the loss of his animals was a key factor in Mr Chadwick’s decision to take his life.

The introduction of the policy last July was celebrated by his best friend, Dee Bonett, but, she told the council's Communities, Housing and Environment Committee this week more still needed to be done.

Under the current arrangement, residents are allowed to have animals in council-owned temporary accommodation but the town hall does not have the authority to overrule any no-pet policies imposed by private landlords and housing associations when they're moved onto more permanent homes.

The policy says that offers of accommodation where pets are not permitted "would not be considered as an unsuitable offer on the basis that your pet could not join you".

Ms Bonett asked: "What would happen if somebody was offered permanent accommodation but they were only given one offer and couldn't take their pets?

"The clause, I feel, should be changed to prevent this tragic situation happening again, which is why I'm continuing to campaign."

John Littlemore, the council's head of housing and community services, said there had not actually been any refusals of offers from applicants leaving temporary accommodation on the basis that they couldn't take their animals with them over the last six months.

He added: "Looking at the number of offers that are made generally through the housing register and in particular to homeless households, we still see just over 50% of those lettings have restrictions around pets.

"So to introduce the change being proposed may well have a significant impact, but we don't know what that will be because there are no refusals on those grounds.

"What we'd like to do is put our efforts into persuading the landlords and housing associations that make those offers to come more in line with the council's position and hopefully that way this situation would not become a problem in the future."

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