Tenants in borough council-owned flats and houses could be looking at a three per cent rent increase next year, and another the year after that.

That is the assumption made by the council’s housing officers coming up with the authority’s financial plan for housing over the next five years.

Although the cabinet member for housing Cathy Martyn was at pains to stress the assumption does not mean rents will rise that fast, some tenants think they could go even higher.

Coun Martyn presented the financial plan to members of the Conservative cabinet and said: “The business plan assumes rents could rise in 2022-23 by as much as three per cent and assumes similar increases in years beyond that.

"No decision has been taken at this point and any increase would be subject to consultation with tenants as per previous years.”

If a three per cent rent rise is brought in it would see the average weekly rent for a council tenant go up from £82.55 to £85.03 from April. The cheapest of the council’s 10,000 properties would increase in cost from £59.32 to £61.10 and the most expensive from £114.18 to £117.61.

Such an increase would allow the council to address a growing gap in what it receives in rents and what it needs to spend on its housing stock after a number of years where central government capped and even cut the amount the council was allowed to charge. Coun Martyn said: “There continues to be a shortfall between the required investment in stock and the funding available over the next five years. This shortfall is around £77.5m, slightly down on the £81m reported last year as a result of increased reserves at the end of 2020-21.”

Martin Wicks of the Swindon Tenants Campaign Group said he hoped the council would not be looking to increase rents higher than three per cent if it was able to.

He added: “The rule is that councils can increase rents by the rate of inflation, plus one per cent. The rate of inflation is taken from the September Consumer Price Index which was announced last week as 3.1 per cent. That means the council could increase rents by up to 4.1 per cent.”

He said that would be a difficult increase to bear for many after the last two years. “Many will have been on furlough and some will have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

“We’ve just had a £20 a week cut in Universal Credit and many working tenants will feel that loss. A rise of three per cent is big enough.”