SIR - In reply to Ronni Sloan and Mary Wood's letter (Gazette, October 17) may I repeat that Stroud District Council is required to ensure that all tenants know the facts about housing transfer. It is a project that the council has worked on with tenant representatives for two years now.

The aim is not only to save existing services to tenants from cuts of over £2.5 million per year from next year but also to improve homes and services. For this very reason, whether tenants vote yes or whether they vote no, tenants will be voting for change of some kind. The only question is which change would provide tenants with the best future.

Hill and Vale Housing has been created by the council for this specific purpose. Unlike the council it would not have to pay 53 pence in the £ of all tenants' rents to the Government. This would ensure that it was better off and able to avoid the cuts that the council will have to impose. Furthermore it will be able to provide a better service with improved homes whilst keeping rents at a similar level as the council would.

Service cuts of over £2.5 million a year, around £13 million over 5 years will be required by the council. It is simply not possible to make this level of cuts without there being a significant impact upon our tenants, their homes and our staff.

All Ronni Sloan offers as an alternative is to "...try again in a few years...". So after her criticism of the amount spent on the process, is her idea to do it all again and so spend twice this amount?

Tenants of around 150 other councils have voted in favour of transfer, mostly to new landlords formed by their council. Let's focus on some real facts of such transfers rather than scaremongering. The National Housing Federation's summary of recent research into transfers shows:

85 percent of tenants satisfied with landlord after transfer;

91 percent of tenants believed their transfer organisation had delivered on all of their promises;

100 percent of transfer organisations were on schedule or had exceeded their major repair promises;

72 percent of properties had benefited from improvements since transfer;

100 percent of transfer organisations had set rents at the level and in the way they said they would.

Ronni Sloan admits that she lives in a property that does not need improvement. I assume that she considers that she will not suffer from the effects of service cuts. Whether she is correct in this I will not comment. However others undoubtedly will suffer and all tenants need to be aware of the facts.

Finally, may I point out that only votes used - either way - will be counted. Votes not used will not be construed either as "yes" or "no" votes.

My advice is that this is a decision every tenant should think very carefully about. If you are unsure about any facts you can ask PEP, your independent tenants' advisor, by ringing their Freephone number - 0800 328 0845. If in doubt, find out.

John T Jeffreys, Cabinet member for housing Stroud District Council, Ebley Mill, Stroud