Wandsworth Council is weighing up a phased rent convergence plan that would add extra weekly charges to almost 10,000 council homes, with the proposals facing public scrutiny at the town hall today.
The council’s Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee will examine the plans at Wandsworth Town Hall on 1 October, before a final decision is taken by the Cabinet on 12 October.
Under the proposals, social-rent tenancies sitting below the government’s formula-rent target would face incremental annual additions from April 2027. Rents would rise by up to £1 a week in the first year, followed by further increments of up to £2 a week in each subsequent year until each property reaches its calculated target rate.
The extra convergence charges would sit on top of standard annual rent adjustments, which are currently capped at Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation plus 1 per cent.
What is formula rent, and why is the gap being closed?
Formula rent is the target rent set by central government for social housing. It is calculated from factors including the size and bedroom count of a property and its value relative to similar homes, and was designed to standardise rents so that similar properties in similar areas charge comparable amounts.
Of around 16,550 active social tenancies managed by Wandsworth Council, internal modelling identifies 9,969 homes — roughly six in ten council properties — as currently sitting below their prescribed target. National mandatory convergence programmes were paused or restructured in previous years, but local authorities retain discretion to close the gap during annual rent reviews.
The council says the move is driven by mounting pressure on its Housing Revenue Account, the ring-fenced budget that pays for housing services and maintenance. Inflation, rising building-safety obligations, essential repairs and statutory damp and mould remediation have all tightened the account, while the authority’s reserves ended last year at £165.97 million — below the level previously targeted by financial planners.
Officers forecast that applying the maximum permitted convergence increases would generate roughly £500,000 of additional revenue in 2027/28, rising to £1 million in 2028/29 and accumulating to about £37 million by 2036/37. The money, they say, would fund maintenance and investment in the existing housing stock and reduce reliance on external borrowing.
What the changes would mean for tenants’ weekly rent
Because the gap between current rents and formula-rent targets varies from home to home, the catch-up period would differ significantly between properties. Council analysis estimates that 6,092 affected households — the majority of those below target — would need at least six years of continuous annual additions to reach their specific level.
To put that in concrete terms: a home sitting £11 a week below its formula-rent target would take six years to converge at the maximum increments. In year one, the tenant’s weekly rent would rise by £1 on top of the standard CPI-plus-1-per-cent increase — an extra £52 over the year. In year two, a further £2 a week would be added, taking the cumulative extra to £3 a week, or £156 over the year. The pattern would continue, with £2 a week added each year, until the gap finally closes in year six. Homes closer to their target would converge sooner; those further away would face the supplementary charge for longer.
The impact would not fall evenly. Around 68 per cent of affected households — an estimated 6,819 — receive Housing Benefit or the housing-costs element of Universal Credit, and that support would typically adjust to cover the rise, subject to individual entitlements. But an estimated 3,160 households, roughly 32 per cent, receive no housing-related benefits and would have to absorb the additional cost directly from household budgets. The council’s own assessment acknowledges it cannot definitively establish whether these self-funding tenants can afford the extra charges.
Official impact assessments also indicate that older tenants, disabled residents and carers are disproportionately represented among the homes below target rent, with many facing extended catch-up timelines. The council says proposed safeguards include clear rent notifications, dedicated benefits advice and targeted support for tenants facing severe financial hardship.
The proposals come as borough tenants face wider changes to how their housing is managed, including a shake-up of resident engagement, and as the council grapples with its broader finances, having also proposed a record 94 per cent council tax increase from April 2027. They follow earlier proposals for a £1-a-week rent rise from 2027 reported this week.
What happens next
The proposals were reviewed by the Borough Residents’ Forum, which brings together tenant representatives and council officers, on 30 September. Today’s public session of the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee at Wandsworth Town Hall is the next formal step, ahead of the Cabinet’s definitive decision on 12 October.
Council documents stress that a Cabinet decision to adopt the framework would not automatically trigger rent rises, nor guarantee that the maximum increments are applied every year. Rents must still be set through the annual rent-setting process, and April 2027 remains the earliest date any additional convergence charge could appear on tenants’ bills, with exact amounts depending on each property’s distance from its formula target.
