Video: Social landlords may need to lower rents, says chief executive

At the Chartered Institute of Housing’s South West Conference in Torquay, Kevin Dodd, chief executive of 31,000-home Wakefield and District Housing, said rising rents were forcing tenants into ‘poverty’.

He said the scheme agreed between government and housing associations in which social rents will increase by the consumer price index plus 1 per cent a year from 2015/16 to 2024/25 was ‘unsustainable’.

‘Rent levels are at such a point that they are actually creating poverty,’ Mr Dodd said.

‘In some organisations, particularly in the north, then it may be a consideration that the rents might have to reduce in certain properties… so that [tenants] can pay [the rent].’

He added: ‘I think the model of increasing rents by CPI plus 1 per cent is not sustainable, certainly in our part of the world on some properties. I think that in the future we could be considering reducing rents.’

He added that rents agreed under the 2011 to 2015 affordable homes programme were too expensive for tenants.

‘I think with the increase in rents that have happened, the programme of raising rents to an affordable rent level is not sustainable and is not necessarily workable. In some instances the affordable rents are higher than the target rents and also the market rents in particular areas like Wakefield,’ he said.

Mr Dodd also called for more to be done to stimulate job creation, enabling people to afford rising rents.

‘I think more needs to be done on creating jobs so that people can get in employment to actually afford the rents,’ he said.