Housing and Homeless
Will council tenants be affected by the financial situation?
Support for council tenants is funded through the Housing Revenue Account, which is a ring-fenced account predominately funded through council tenant and leaseholder payments.
Birmingham City Council will be investing a record £5 billion in its housing stock over the next 30 years to ensure its tenants and leaseholders can live in warm, safe, and sustainable homes.
Within that investment, the council will spend £1.4 billion to ensure all existing housing stock complies with Decent Homes Standards in the next eight years.
Will tenants see an increase in rents?
Council tenant and leaseholder payments fund the Housing Revenue Account. This account is ringfenced, ensuring that it remains unaffected by the council’s financial situation.
Rents for tenants and leaseholders will increase 7.7%, in line with the government rent cap of CPI inflation plus 1%.
Inflation has unfortunately made these rent rises unavoidable.
We know that households will face challenge with any proposed rent increase, but we must balance this with the necessity of improving the quality of people’s homes.
Around 3 quarters of tenants will be unaffected by the rate rises as welfare benefits will cover the increase, and we will support all our tenants to ensure they are claiming benefits they are entitled to.
Will major developments at Ladywood and Druids Heath be stopped?
Both of the regeneration developments at Ladywood and Druids heath will continue as planned.
Will housebuilding continue?
The council is directly building new social housing at a number of sites across the city with new homes being handed over to tenants at Gressel Lane and Bromford Estate as well as new sites beginning construction at Long Nuke Road, Highgate Road, Kings Norton Primrose estate, and Highfield Road.
However, renovating and improving the existing stock will be the priority as a means to contribute to the supply of affordable housing.
What will happen to people on the housing register?
The budget will have no impact on the people on the housing register. Applicants will still be able to access their applications, make changes and upload supporting information to their applications by logging onto their account.
Available properties will still be advertised on Birmingham Choice and applicants will still be able to place bids on properties they are interested in.
Will the council continue to provide homelessness support services?
Statutory homelessness support services will continue to be delivered through the council’s Housing Solutions and Support Service.
In recent years there has been a marked reduction in the number of people sleeping rough.
This reduction has been achieved in part by working with many trusted partners in the voluntary and community sector to deliver a city-wide approach to support citizens affected by homelessness. Services have also been redesigned to focus more on prevention, and our ability to secure alternative accommodation has also improved.
However, there is a national housing crisis and demand for accommodation in the city has never been higher.
We will continue to carefully balance the requirement placed on us to address the council's financial situation alongside the need to protect those who are vulnerable and in need.
Page last updated: 22 April 2024
