Thank you to everyone who takes part in our annual rent consultations. Your feedback is essential in helping us make informed decisions that affect both rent affordability and the quality of the housing services we provide. We hope you’ll share your views again this year.

Setting a proposed rent level is always difficult, especially as cost increases experienced in recent years have become the new normal. We want to keep rents affordable for tenants while still investing in the upkeep and improvement of our homes for both current and future residents.

Inflation - which is known as CPI (Consumer Price Index) - measures how much the everyday prices of goods and services such as food, clothes and transport have risen.  It has remained stubbornly high in the year.

These real cost increases are    typically even higher for construction and maintenance, meaning that without cutting the value of services or 
investment, an increase of 4.8% - slightly above the current rate of CPI of 3.6% - is proposed.  This is on top of the amount determined by the rent restructure, capped at no more than +/- £2 per week.

This helps us maintain a balance between affordability and high-quality services, including the 24/7 repairs service that you have told us is vital to you while continuing our significant investment programme in our homes - £11.5m in 2025-26. 

We are also offering a higher rent increase option of 5.3% in the consultation, which could increase funds over 10 years totalling £1.7m.

This is equivalent to new windows for an additional 250 homes over 10 years - supporting our commitment to investing in the fabric of homes to make them easier and more affordable to heat.