Council tennants' rent to rise at SIX times inflation

Feb 13 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

She said: “It’s Government policy to bring council house rents in line with the rest of the rented sector over a period of years.”

Clr Pinnock added that tenants in Kirklees would suffer cuts in their service if the council refused to increase rents by as much as the Government demands.

The Cleckheaton Lib Dem said: “It’s a no-win situation. If we don’t put up rent to the level the Government wants, they will cut our housing budget which would mean we had less to spend on maintenance and repairs.

“However much as we don’t want to bring in rises of this magnitude in the current economic climate, not doing so would probably penalise people to the same extent.”

Clr Pinnock added that the Government was using council house rents from Kirklees to subsidise public housing in London. She said: “There’s a bigger scandal here – the way that money from our tenants goes into the Government coffers and is then spent elsewhere in the country. Kirklees is subsidising other parts of the country, particularly London.”

Last year Clr Pinnock claimed Kirklees tenants were paying a “stealth tax” to help people in parts of the country where housing costs are high. She said that from 2008 to 2011 Kirklees tenants would pay £53m in rent but the Government would only give the council £24m for housing in the same period.