Rent increase "outrageous"

Sir-- We have just been informed that Rotherham Council's has proposed a rent increase of its housing stock of 9.4% which, if implemented will mean it will have inflicted on its tenants "the highest rent increase in the country!"

The increase last year of 8.7% was bad enough but to inflict an even higher increase this coming financial year is absolutely outrageous!

If, as Eric Pickles says, councils have a moral duty to sign up to a freeze on council tax and keep down the cost of living, anything less is a kick in the teeth to hard-working, decent taxpayers.

Surely Rotherham council has a moral duty not to inflict rent rises of this magnitude on a very deprived town.

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Cllr Rose McNeely says that if they do not implement this rise they will be penalised and that almost two thirds of tenants will not be affected by this increase, as if it is of no consequence that many of the remaining third of tenants who will have to find the money for this outrageous increase are in dire financial straits.

Where is the morality in making a minority of tenants bear the burden of a very large increase while the majority of non-paying tenants are blithely unconcerned at year on year above inflation rent rises, and also that a proportion of their rent is subsidised by the tenants who pay rent!

Doncaster’s financial director says its long-term business plan has enabled it to find a way not to inflict such large increases on its tenants!

This demonstrates that a way to avoid such a large increase could have been found, but the only long-term business plan Rotherham council seems to have is to inflict the largest increases in the country on a minority of its tenants and then absolve itself from any responsibility.

For Rotherham Council to say complacently that only a minority of its tenants will have to pay this, is outrageous and equally as immoral as failing to sign up to the freeze on council tax!

A. Richardson, Robert Street, Rotherham.