A senior Nottingham City councillor has said only one-in-four council-owned home tenants will have to pay more rent, a rise which some residents have described as 'ridiculous'.
Nottingham City Council is proposing to increase rent its tenants have to pay by 4.1 per cent, the highest possible amount.
The local authority needs to save £28million to avoid Government intervention, and in its final set of proposals of how to do that, an increase in rent is one of them.
These proposals also include the closure of five out of nine children's centres, charges for bulky waste collections and cuts to youth and play services, subject to approval on February 22 by senior councillors.
Portfolio holder for housing and planning at the City Council, Labour councillor for Basford Linda Woodings, says the average rent for three bedroom properties is £87.85 per week.
The proposed rent hike means those that fall into this bracket would pay £91.45 per week, which is £3.60 more every week, and £14.41 more every month.
Council-owned two bedroom properties are currently charged £79.07 per week, which would rise to £82.31, a £3.24 increase.
Four bedroom properties are currently charged £96.63 per week, which would rise to £100.59, a £3.96 increase.
But Cllr Woodings says only 'one-in-four' would actually have to pay more because of housing benefits.
Speaking to Nottinghamshire Live, she said: "It won't affect the vast majority of people, only around 25 per cent of council tenants will have to find additional money.
"That's because housing benefit will take up the cost of the rise.
"I know the minority of people in work will be working really hard to find that extra for the additional rent, and I'm always conscious of that.
"I'm always thinking about what would be reasonable to afford, especially as the cost of living such as energy bills are going up.
"But we're all suffering from inflation, we are below target rent to charge and it's substantially lower than the extra people are having to pay in the private sector."
The 4.1 percent would be the maximum rise the council is allowed, which is the lower rate of inflation at 3.1 percent with an additional 1 per cent on top of that.
Cllr Woodings explains why rent is proposed to be increased.
She said: "We're not able to raise funds for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) by any other way except from raising rent as it's ringfenced.
"We're coming up to the tipping point of losing 50 percent of our housing stock to right-to-buy, and we need to modernise some homes and build new ones faster than we're currently able to do.
"There's going to be new legislation introduced to improve the minimum standard of housing, and we're trying to get ahead of this being introduced."
Local residents had raised concerns about rent going up.
Gillian Bainbridge, 68, of Aspley, who was named Nottingham City Homes' tenant of the year in 2019, said: "It's been expected but it's never welcome, it's not a surprise but it is significant.
"It always seems to affect the people that work."
Amanda Anderson, 32, who lives on Greencroft, says she pays £380 per month for her council home.
The rent hike would mean she would have to pay an additional £15.58 per month, bringing her rent to £395.58.
She said: "I've got six kids and it’s hard to live as it is without rent going up, it’s just ridiculous.
"I live in a council-owned home and I think I pay enough. Gas and electricity are going up.
"I get £100 per week from my part-time job and then have universal credit. I can barely live as it is."
Bradley Bordoy, 30, who lives on Varney Road, added: "It's not good, the council have made so many bad decisions over the past few years, look at what happened with Robin Hood Energy.
"Lots of money has been put into Broad Marsh, too, and now they’re going to put it on people to get them out of trouble."
And Bryn Cragg, 37, who runs Amati’s Universe Gym on Varney Road, said: "It's poor from them, it shouldn’t be going up. Everything else has been going up though, and you expect it to come along."
To read all the biggest and best stories first sign up to read our newsletters here.
