Housing Minister John Healey announced guideline rent increases will be halved for 2010-11.
The Minister emphasised that he remained committed to ensuring rents remain fair and affordable for tenants and that this reduction this year would not lead to steep increases in the following years. The move means that for the second year running the Government has taken steps to lower rents for council tenants.
Mr Healey also referred to the Government's policy of rents convergence, that will see local authority and housing association tenants eventually paying similar rents for similar properties in similar areas in place, but said there was no fixed date for convergence.
He made clear that the Government's starting point and first concern was to see rent rises for council tenants next year at a reasonable and affordable level, given the pressure on all households due to the economic downturn.
Information Notes
The HRA Subsidy determination for 2010-11 including Local Authority Average Guideline Rent increases is now available on the Communities and Local Government website.
Vigorous lobbying by the National Housing Federation and others paid off as the Government accepted that all affordable housing should benefit from social housing relief - effectively a full exemption from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) on virtually all social units developed.
CIL is due to be introduced by local authorities from later this year. This victory will potentially save housing associations millions of pounds, allowing them to build more much-needed affordable homes.
Final regulations to enact CIL have just been laid before Parliament. They state that social housing - including socially rented and shared ownership homes - will not be liable for CIL.
Charitable housing associations might have been able to benefit from the CIL charities exemption included in the 2008 Planning Act. However this was not certain and the Federation, along with the Chartered Institute of Housing and Shelter, had been lobbying Government hard for full relief from CIL for all affordable housing - both to ensure a level playing-field across the sector and to protect housing associations' capacity to deliver affordable homes.
During the passage of the 2008 Planning Act, then Planning Minister Baroness Andrews committed to explore the potential of all affordable housing paying a 'significantly reduced rate' of CIL. However this was put in doubt when the draft CIL regulations and consultation document, published in July last year, stated that Government was not yet convinced of the case for affordable housing receiving any relief from CIL.
The Government has now accepted the need for affordable housing to benefit from social housing relief - effectively a zero rate of CIL on virtually all social units developed.
