Colin Ackers registered for the council waiting list after his landlord gave him formal notice to quit a privately-leased Platt Bridge terraced home in January.

He is in the advanced stages of cystic fibrosis (CF) and has been given three years to live by specialists.

He is now desperate to move to a flat in the Ashton-in-Makerfield area so that his Bryn-based parents can continue to look after him in the final stages of his illness.

Currently his pensioner mother, Frances Ackers, takes two bus journeys each way, every day (a two-hour round trip), to do his shopping and cleaning.

Mrs Ackers has blasted a Wigan Council decision to deny him "medical priority" status on Wigan and Leigh Housing's 7,500-strong waiting list as "heartless."

Colin, a 27-year-old single man, who survives on Disability Living Allowance, received the final notice to quit his current home on March 24 as the landlord has decided he wants to sell up.

But his mother and her husband, who suffers from a heart condition himself, say that they cannot believe the way Colin is being treated by the Metro.

A retired former care worker, she said he had been offered a one-bedroomed flat.

But as his parents regularly need to stay-over when his condition deteriorates, they need at least two.

Mrs Ackers, 64, said: "Colin has had CF since being diagnosed as a seven-month-old baby.

"He is now terminally ill, his doctors say that he has another three years or so if he is lucky and that he is already one of the longest lived people with cystic fibrosis in Wigan.

"But when he approached Wigan and Leigh Housing they didn't seem to want to help him at all. At first he was classified as band four, which is the lowest category of need and meant he would have been on it for ever before anything was offered.

"I had a meeting with them and this has now gone up to band two in the waiting list. But they won't make him band one, which is for people on a medical and welfare priority.

"This is apparently because he doesn't walk with a stick and when he is well he has good mobility but, if anybody is a medical priority, Colin is.

"He has to do a big physiotherapy programme which is keeping him going although when he becomes really ill – and we don't know when it is going to be – we are always hanging on the end of a phone. He is on a nebuliser and can do nothing until it passes again.

"I know that there is a choice of two flats in Landgate going begging which would be perfect for him because we could get to him quickly if there is an emergency and that is really essential.
"It could be a disaster if they stick him in council accommodation over the other side of the borough. It feels like we are being fobbed off."

Mrs Ackers said Wigan and Leigh Housing contacted her after the Evening Post's intervention.

And they confirm that Mr Ackers' housing application has now been moved to band one category as a "medical and welfare" emergency.

A Metro spokesman said: "It is clear that Mr Ackers has considerable health issues. We have increased his priority for rehousing."