West Dunbartonshire Council agreed last night to increase tenants’ rent by 4.5 per cent in order to keep up with general inflation and fund essential on-going investment in its housing.
The increase, which applies from 4 April 2011, will see the average weekly rent payable over 47 weeks go up from £57.68 to £60.28.
The decision takes account of the fact general inflation has been in excess of 4 per cent over the past year, and that the Council is having to invest significant sums in its housing to bring it up to the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015. It will spend £19 million next year on these improvements and this alone will cost an extra £590,710 in 2011/12.
The Council has made every effort to minimise the rent increase that is passed on to tenants by making a number of efficiency savings within the Housing and Repairs team. These include a reduction in employee costs of £179,910, a reduction in property costs linked to the Council’s insurance premium of £75,260 and a £56,770 drop in central support costs. By improving the turnaround times for vacant Council properties a further £129,430 should also be saved over the coming year.
West Dunbartonshire also currently has the ninth lowest weekly rent charges amongst Scotland’s 26 Housing authorities.
The Council conducted a wide-ranging consultation on these changes, including an information leaflet delivered to more than 10,000 households in West Dunbartonshire. In total 11 individual tenants responded objecting to the increase. Two further consultation meetings with tenant/federation groups and tenants were held and the general consensus was that they were not in favour of the increase, and that they did not think they were getting value for money.
Councillor William Hendrie, Convener for Housing, said: “Any rent increase, particularly when wage rises are being frozen and jobs are under threat, is going to be unpopular with our tenants.
“This Council faced a very difficult decision. Over the next four years we must spend more than £60 million to improve homes and bring our housing stock up to the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015 and we simply can’t do that without increasing rents. We’ve tried to keep this rent increase as low as possible by making considerable efficiencies to the Housing and Repairs service.”
Any tenant who is concerned about their financial position or their ability to pay their rent should contact their local housing office as soon as possible so that staff can investigate what help is available to them. The contact details are as follows:
- Clydebank – 01389 738555
- Dumbarton – 01389 737163
- Alexandria – 01389 608003
The rents for 2011/2012 are:
|
Current
|
New
|
|
£50.73
|
£53.01
|
|
£51.49
|
£53.81
|
|
£52.26
|
£54.61
|
|
£53.02
|
£55.41
|
|
£53.78
|
£56.20
|
|
£54.54
|
£56.99
|
|
£55.31
|
£57.80
|
|
£56.07
|
£58.59
|
|
£56.83
|
£59.39
|
|
£57.60
|
£60.19
|
|
£58.36
|
£60.99
|
|
£59.12
|
£61.78
|
|
£59.88
|
£62.57
|
|
£60.65
|
£63.38
|
|
£61.41
|
£64.17
|
|
£62.17
|
£64.97
|
|
£62.93
|
£65.76
|
|
£63.70
|
£66.57
|
|
£64.46
|
£67.36
|
|
£65.22
|
£68.15
|
|
£65.99
|
£68.96
|
|
£66.75
|
£69.75
|
|
£67.51
|
£70.55
|
|
£68.27
|
£71.34
|
|
£69.04
|
£72.15
|
If you rent is not shown on the chart it is because your rent has not yet come into line with the new rent remodelling structure which was introduced. To work out the 4.5% increase: divide your rent by 100, multiply (x) it by 4.5 and then add the total to your original rent figure.
