Council House Rents Limited to 1.9% Rise
5th February 2016
Council house rents will be limited to a 1.9% rise in order to maintain current service levels. This will mean an increase in the average weekly council rent of £1.35 for all Housing Revenue Account (HRA) rents.
Since 2010/11, significant efforts have been made to achieve efficiencies and ensure best value in Housing Revenue Account (HRA) expenditure. This has positively resulted in Highland Council moving from the 2nd highest average rent in 2009/10, to 8th highest in 2013/14 and now to the 17th highest average rent of 26 Councils in Highland in 2015/16.
Council housing rents increased by 1% against a national average of 3.2% in 2015/16.
Chair of Community Services, Cllr Allan Henderson said: I am pleased to see the marked improvement in the Councils performance with regard to housing rent. This level of increase will enable us to retain existing service levels, together with achieving efficiencies to deliver the same level of service across a larger housing stock. In the light of the Council's current budget pressures, a 1.9% rise is extremely fair and will not disproportionately affect those on lower incomes.
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