At a full meeting of East Lothian Council this week, councillors took the decision to approve a 6.5 per cent rent increase for council tenants for 2025/26, to maintain services and increase our modernisation programmes as well as continuing to deliver new build council housing.
A rent level consultation with council tenants had been carried out at the end of 2024, which proposed an increase of seven per cent. Just over half of tenants agreed with the need to increase rent, with 75 per cent of those who responded agreeing that the rent they paid was good value for money, but 63 per cent disagreed with a seven per cent increase.
At this week’s meeting, Council agreed to increase rents for 2025/6 by 6.5 per cent with an extra £1 million in investment in all of the next five years to fund modernisation work for existing council homes. Councillors also heard that there are plans to deliver 774 new affordable homes by 2029/30 (cumulative since 2022/23).
On average, while a new-build house will bring in under £5,000 in rent each year, the cost of building a new council house has increased significantly in recent years and is now in excess of £200,000. Without additional government funding or a review of the rent strategy this approach will become unsustainable over the medium term. In the context of elevated interest rates and increased costs to deliver new build affordable housing, alongside lack of certainty in government funding, Council agreed to review the longer-term strategy for the HRA, encompassing the business plan and future rent levels as well as a review of oversight and scrutiny arrangements for housing policy, performance and strategic planning. Plans are already underway to achieve a rent restructure in 2025/6.
Councillor Andy Forrest, Cabinet Spokesperson for Housing and Property Maintenance, said: “Despite being one of the fastest growing local authority areas in Scotland, East Lothian’s council house rent levels are among some of the lowest. We know from consultation that the majority of tenants believe that their rent is good value for money and that they want us to use that rent to keep investing in modernisation work and bringing more new properties into council housing stock to ease pressure on our housing list.
“This 6.5 per cent increase means an average weekly increase of £5.25 in what our tenants pay. My thanks to everyone who took part in the rent level consultation. I hope it is clear that this increase is absolutely necessary to maintain current levels of service to our tenants and to make improvements in our modernisation and new build programmes.”
Councillor Forrest added: “I also welcome the review of oversight and scrutiny arrangements for housing policy, performance and strategic planning, as this will ensure that we can continue to deliver on our priorities.”
Council also approved a Housing Revenue Account expenditure budget for 2025/26 of £40.958m, an increase of around £2.8m on last year, which will be spent on service costs including repairs and staffing. The Capital budget of £43.820m will be invested in new council housing, modernisation, extensions and energy efficiency improvements to existing council properties.