Thousands of council tenants in Wandsworth could be paying extra rent from April 2027 under new plans that would add £1 a week at first, then £2 more every year until rents reach a government-set target.
The proposal covers 9,969 tenancies — around six in ten of the borough’s roughly 16,550 council homes — whose rents sit below the Government’s “Formula Rent” target. The extra pounds would stay in the rent permanently, with the normal annual increase then calculated on top.
Council tenants are the third group in the borough to learn they face higher bills this month. Owners of homes worth £2 million or more are in line for a new “mansion tax” of at least £2,500 a year from April 2028, while every household faces a planned near-doubling of council tax next April.
How the rises would work
The Government set the rules back in January: councils may add up to £1 a week to below-target rents in April 2027, then £2 a week each April from 2028. Wandsworth’s finance paper, written by finance director Fenella Merry, “assumes maximum rent increases” — the full amounts allowed.
How long a tenant keeps paying the extra depends on how far their rent is below target:
- 6,092 tenancies are £10 or more a week below target — six-plus years of extra rises
- 1,538 are £5 to £10 below — four to six years
- 1,857 are £1 to £5 below — one to three years
- 482 are under £1 below — caught up in year one
The figures come from the council’s Equality Impact Needs Assessment, Appendix A3 to Paper 26-232.
This is on top of the 4.8% normal rent rise tenants saw this April. And it is still only a proposal: the paper goes before the Borough Residents’ Forum at 7.30pm tonight, the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee considers it tomorrow at Wandsworth Town Hall, and the Cabinet decides on 12 October. Full Council does not get a vote. Even a yes next month would not raise rents by itself — the council sets rents in January, and tenants would learn the outcome in their rent letter next spring.
What it would raise
The extra rent would bring in around £500,000 in its first year and roughly £1 million more in the second, climbing to about £37 million by 2037. The money is earmarked for repairs and to reduce borrowing — counting on it has already allowed the council to cut planned repair borrowing from £212 million to £123 million.
The housing account needs it. It finished last year £7.1 million short of what the council had planned to set aside, and the paper paints a stark picture: the council intends to borrow £848 million over ten years, mostly for rebuilding estates and new council homes, with interest and repayments rising from £17 million a year now to £55 million by 2036 — a quarter of all rent collected. Even with the extra rent, the account balance is expected to slide from about £166 million now to £136 million in ten years.
The bills stacking up include fire safety work, damp and mould, inflation, higher interest rates, and costs flowing from the housing regulator’s C3 rating — the second-lowest mark, handed down last year. A stock-condition survey was running late in August against a December deadline, and the Building Safety Regulator typically takes 35 weeks to sign off work on tall blocks, pushing consultant and builder costs up further.
Who feels it most
Most affected tenants would not pay the extra themselves: 6,819 of the 9,969 — around 68% — receive Housing Benefit or the rent element of Universal Credit, and the council says the additional cost for them “is in effect covered fully by the Government”.
That leaves 3,160 households — about a third — paying their own rent. The council’s own assessment is candid: “Current data does not establish the affordability of the increase for these households.”
The paper also warns that older tenants on fixed incomes, disabled tenants and carers “may have less capacity to absorb an increase”. Tenants over 75 are furthest behind target, averaging £28.45 a week below it, meaning they would pay the extra for the longest. Three in four one-bedroom flats are below target too.
The paper recommends pressing ahead anyway, with support offered through rent letters, benefits advice and the council’s tenancy support and financial inclusion teams.
Tenants can ask the housing service for their home’s target rent and the gap, and can attend tomorrow’s public scrutiny meeting at the Town Hall. The papers are published on the council’s democracy site. The Cabinet’s decision on 12 October will show whether the borough’s tenants join the growing list of Londoners paying more for council services next year.
