Proposals to increase rents on council homes in Ipswich are needed, the housing lead has said.
Yesterday evening, members of Ipswich’s executive met to discuss several proposals relating to the council’s housing stock, including a 2.7 per cent increase in affordable and social rents.
Cllr Alasdair Ross, the authority’s housing lead, said the extra money would help the council in delivering fire safety and mould works to keep homes up to standard.
Ipswich Borough Council affordable and social rents could be increased in the next financial year. Picture: Submitted.
He added: “It’s never great to have to raise prices for anything, especially as people are still suffering under the current cost of living, so it is important we do as much as we can to help our tenants.
“Though we are increasing the rent, I believe we do provide our tenants with a very good service and we will continue to do so.”
The increase would be in line with Government guidance and, in practice, be equivalent to an average rent of £103.62 per week, or £2.72 extra.
Cllr Alasdair Ross, Ipswich Borough Council’s housing lead, said the extra money would help the council in delivering fire safety and mould works to keep homes up to standard. Picture: Ipswich Borough Council.
Despite the extra cost, however, approval would mean the smallest increase in council rents in four years and net the council an extra £1.1 million for its Housing Revenue Account (HRA).
Cllr Ian Fisher, the opposition leader, said although he understood why an increase was needed, he would rather see a smaller one.
Cllr Ross addressed this by saying not increasing rents by the maximum amount would end up ‘building up problems for the future years’.
Similar proposals were discussed yesterday which would see the same increased rate applied to garage and hard-standing rents, meaning a 30p and 6p weekly increase respectively.
The housing lead’s plans included changes to the council’s service and utility charges for sheltered housing, currently capped at a £2 increase.
These would see the cap removed and replaced with a phased annual increase aimed at addressing the £433,000 income shortfall and removing the cost subsidy over three years.
This would mean an average of just over £5 extra per tenant, depending on the sheltered scheme.
All proposals were given the go-ahead by the council’s executive members ahead of final sign-off during the full council meeting next week.