Hackney’s social rent and service charges to rise
Housing chief Cllr Clayeon McKenzie said rents would still be the ‘seventh-lowest in London’. Photograph: Hackney Council
Hackney Council has announced an increase in both social rent and service charges from 7 April, as it assures tenants that the hikes mean the Town Hall’s rates will remain “among the lowest in London”.
On Monday, the council cabinet agreed to raise rent and management charges by 2.7 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively, in a bid to cover the rising costs.
This equates to an extra £3.38 a week – from £125.18 to £128.56.
The borough’s housing chief, Cllr Clayeon McKenzie, said Hackney’s rents would “still remain the seventh-lowest in London” and explained that the increase was vital to cover the growing cost pressures of the borough’s housing revenue account (HRA).
He added that inflation had driven up the price of repairs and maintenance, while the Labour government’s Employer’s National Insurance (NI) hike announced in October had also added to the council’s overheads.
Another factor was the social rent cap imposed by central government during the cost-of-living crisis, which, while welcome for residents, at the time saw £233 million in income taken from the Town Hall’s original business plan.
Acknowledging that many families were still strapped for cash, Cllr McKenzie assured that the council would “continue to support our residents who face financial hardship”.
Alongside this, the Town Hall has announced a slew of measures to improve its housing services, including resident scrutiny panels, a policy and procedure review, updated repairs guides for tenants and a better cleaning service for gutters and ‘high-reach’ areas.
The latter change is of particular note following the tragic death of leaseholder Sarah McGreevy, who died last June after falling from the balcony of her sixth-floor flat while trying to unclog a drainpipe.
The assistant coroner for inner north London later warned that the incident could happen again if the freeholder – Hackney Council – did not take action.
While tenants may welcome proposed solutions like humidity monitors to help tackle damp and mould, the local authority warned that it would “still need to make savings” across its services.
It also plans to increase service charges for leaseholders by 7.5 per cent to “reflect actual costs incurred for their block or estate”.
Hackney Conservatives criticised the hikes affecting both tenants and leaseholders, arguing that in such hard times, “if anything there should be a decrease”.
Cllr Simche Steinberger said: “I can find millions of pounds being wasted all over Hackney. It’s about time [the council] started treating public money like it’s public money.”
The Greens group’s Cllr Liam Davis said that while the rent rises were largely the result of both the current Labour and previous Tory government’s “poor choices”, the Town Hall “deserves its share of blame for the dangerously poor state of much council housing in the borough”.
“The damp and disrepair which Hackney residents face every day as they wait months or years for council action makes the rent and service charge particularly painful.”
The Town Hall has emphasised that it is one of the largest social landlords in the country, with “huge challenges in delivering high quality services”.
This is due to many factors, notably the national shortage of council and affordable homes, overcrowding, and years of national underinvestment in council housing.
Council tenants might not think so but council rents are ridiculously cheap. Why do you think the housing waiting list is so long? Its because the rents are less than a third of similar properties on the open market. And that's not because landlords are making extortionate profits, its because property prices and mortgage rates mean that that is what landlords need to charge to make being a landlord viable.
Being a council tenant is a bit like being given a subsidy for life, because the rent stays low even if the financial circumstances improve greatly. Council tenants tend to stay put for ever, as costs in the non social housing world (the real world) are so much higher.
I'm surprised that prices of service charges for leaseholders will be going up by a certain percentage -I though leaseholder were charged to actual cost of providing the services not just any figure the Council likes.
Not sure why this is news.
The formula for rent increases of social housing is set by central Government and has been for years.
See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/limit-on-annual-rent-increases-2025-26-from-april-2025
It strange that not all tenants know this but stranger that someone writing an article hasn't done their research.
At bit like all the ill informed comments about the triple lock for pensioners ie it was brought in after a survey found that UK pensions were some of the worst in the world. And the formula used is to try and get UK pensions in line with other European countries.
So it has nothing to do with anything other than that.
The decision is has the aim been achieved. And a similar campaign could be launched on other welfare payments.
re level of housing prices – they are so high because there is a shortage of housing. If the right to buy hadn't been brought in, and social house building had continued at previous levels, there would not be a shortage, and house prices would come down. Thank Thatcher and all the following Governments who didn't cancel this asset stripping. Just as the cost of water has gone up because it was sold to private companies whose focus is shareholder dividends, not providing water. Its easy money because we all need water just like we all need housing.
The council does nothing but increase our taxes and cut our services eg libraries, child care, schools. All designed to make children less happy now and less literate when they grow up.