City council hikes rents by maximum amount allowed

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

Rent for thousands of council house tenants will go up by 4.3% in April, the maximum level allowed.

People living in a one-bed flat In Swansea will pay £104.21p per week all the way up to £137.20p per week for a six-bed house, a council report said.

The authority is having to spend a lot more to maintain and repair its 13,800-odd houses and flats but rental income is growing more slowly. The report said this divergence was creating a “significant and escalating risk”.

A new system of rent-setting is being introduced in Wales next year for councils and housing associations. Key to the calculation is the level of inflation in the September before the year the new rents come into effect.

The maximum level permitted in 2026-2027 is a 0.5% per increase on top of the 3.8% inflation figure in September, taking it to 4.3%.

Full council agreed the proposed 4.3% hike after hearing from Cllr Andrea Williams, whose cabinet brief includes housing.

She said council house rents were lower in Swansea compared to local housing associations, bar one and two-bed flats where a housing group called Beacon was cheaper. Swansea is currently the fifth most expensive out of the 11 Welsh councils which have retained their housing stock.

“So I think we are still very competitive,” said Cllr Williams. “I know there are people in the private (rental) sector who are really struggling to pay extortionate rents, and this is why we always need to get that right balance between increasing rents enough that we can invest in our homes and invest in support for tenants but not charge too much so that it becomes unaffordable.”

The report said the average weekly rent for council house tenants in Swansea would be £124.22p per week with a 4.3% rise. This represents approximately 22% of the average person’s gross income but excludes any income growth like a pay rise they might receive from April.

Unaffordable

The report said rents exceeding 30% of gross income were considered unaffordable according to the Office for National Statistics, while the Joseph Rowntree Foundation considered rents above 28% of income to be unaffordable. The report said weekly earnings in Swansea were £574 compared to a Wales figure of £674 and a UK level of £711.

It added that the latest data in Swansea indicated that 30% of council house tenants paid their rent from their own income rather than housing benefit or universal credit. A survey of tenants is nearing completion. A survey two years ago found 73% of council house tenants were very satisfied or fairly satisfied that their rent provided value for money, while 18% were neither satisfied or dissatisfied and 9% were either dissatisfied or fairly dissatisfied.

Cllr Williams told councillors that other social landlords in Swansea were “all going for the maximum” 4.3% rent rise next April, and that most councils were as well.