Social housing tenants across the Borough of Guildford are set to be hit with a triple increase in fees by the Lib Dem Council.
Guildford Borough Council (GBC) approved a 7.7% rise in rent for its' social tenants, at the same time as raising Council Tax for all residents within the Borough by 2.99%. Over 5,200 houses are owned and managed by the Council that it rents as social housing.
This decision was made at a meeting of GBC last week (Thursday 8th February), with the Lib Dems also implementing higher fees for bins and parking charges, as they struggle to balance the books whilst being investigated by Surrey Police into allegations of fraud.
The Lib Dems will be stripping public assets, with millions of pounds worth of public property set to be sold. Details of what's to be sold remains murky, save that around 75 sites have been identified for disposal. If this doesn't bring in the requisite income, GBC has said more public assets could be sold to raise £50 million.
An amendment was put forward to see tenants' rent increase by only 5%, however, this defeated when the Lib Dem Mayor, Masuk Miah, used his casting vote to side with the ruling group.
The Lib Dem Portfolio Holder for Finance, Cllr Richard Lucas, Ash Vale, said of the decisions made:
“The alternative to not passing this budget would increase the risk of 114 [notification that the council cannot balance its budget]. This would mean that all councillors are removed from the decision making process. It also means that all non-statutory services would be under the knife."
However, Cllr Joss Bigmore, Residents for Guildford and Villages, who introduced the failed amendment stated:
"To follow the guidance, and that’s all it is, of 7.7% is wrong. Universal credit is only going up by 6.7%.
“Last year we ignored the guidance, the actual guidance was 11 but the Government capped it at seven. We decided that five per cent was fair. That was a way of protecting some of our most vulnerable residents in social housing from the cost of living crisis and to be frank I don’t see what changes this year.
“We should think again, we should look at a social rent increase of 5 per cent.”
Speaking to the Guildford Dragon after the meeting, Cllr Bigmore said:
“I was very pleased that the Labour Party, the Conservatives, and the Guildford Greenbelt Group supported my motion to reduce the shocking increase in social rents proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately it was not enough, the vote was drawn, and the Mayor (a Liberal Democrat) voted to increase rents well above current levels of inflation.
“Against a backdrop of a cost of living crisis, and poor performance from our housing team the decision to hit those families with a 7.7 per cent increase in rent is hard to understand or justify. This year GBC will profit £8 million from its tenants, adding to the existing £80 million of reserves, this rent increase is grossly unfair, and a reward for failure.
The Leader of the Conservatives at GBC, Cllr Philip Brooker, stated how the increase is about twice that of the current rate of inflation, and the rise is to cover for the Lib Dem's mismanagement of Council finances. Cllr Brooker stated:
“Conservatives unanimously supported the amendment to restrict the rise to 5 per cent. There were some abstentions from the Lib Dems despite their leader offering a bribe to her backbenchers of £60,000 (£11.50p per household), by increasing the hardship fund – an astonishing public act of panic as the vote became uncertain.
“Cllr Bob Hughes speaking for the Conservative group made clear that this was a political decision as the housing account had £millions of reserves. Tenants are being made to pay for Lib Dem failure to control spending with millions being overspent during their first term, with fraud investigations now underway.
"Every council tenant has been badly let down by the people they elected to represent them.”
The Labour Group Leader, Cllr James Walsh, was also strongly vocal against the rise in fees, stating:
“While rents do need to increase to enable the council to provide repairs, replacements, refurbishments and rebuilds to our council housing, Labour’s position is that the council must also consider the severe financial pressures faced by many people in Guildford at the moment.
“We supported the amendment for the smaller increase to council rents because there is no immediate pressure to increase it by 7.7 per cent. The housing account already has millions of pounds in its reserves and a lower increase of 5 per cent would still see £70 million added to the pot over the next few years.”
“Residents have received a mixed service in recent years due to problems in the housing repairs department that are now being addressed. Voting for a lower increase was simply the right thing to do in these circumstances and we also voted to increase the hardship fund by £60,000 to £100,000 in recognition of the difficulties people are facing.”
