Council tenants could face rent rise

AROUND eight out of ten council homes in Caerphilly County Borough could see their rent increase – if a new way of working out bills is adopted by the council.

Caerphilly County Borough Council’s rent policy is currently being reviewed in line with the Welsh Government’s expectations that social landlords should be charging an affordable rent.

Caerphilly County Borough Council is thinking of using a formula from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) called the Living Rent Model. In Wales, Cardiff is the only other local authority which uses this method.

Its aim is to work out affordable rents linked to people’s income. It does this using earnings data for an area from the Office for National Statistics.

However if this was introduced for tenants of Caerphilly County Borough Council, it would mean 83% of council-owned properties would see an increase in rent.

A meeting of the council’s Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Committee was told that on average, rents are currently 3.9% below what they would be using the JRF model.

At the meeting on June 9, the council’s head of housing Nick Taylor-Williams stressed the county borough would still be an affordable area for rent - despite the proposed increase.

Increasing rent using the JRF model would boost the council’s income by £2.4 million a year. That money would go into the Housing Revenue Account - which means it can only be spent back on council housing.

Current tenants will not be affected by the proposed increase, as they are protected by current Welsh Government policy.

If the JRF model is adopted, two, three and four bedroom properties, such as flats, bungalows, and houses, could see a rent increase when re-let to new tenants. However, rent for a one-bedroom property could be lowered.

Despite the JRF model calculating a lower rent for one bedroom properties, a report presented to the committee’s councillors admitted that rents for these could instead be frozen.

The report was unanimously supported by the scrutiny committee, and will now be presented to cabinet before a final decision is made.