Tenants urged to have say on rent
Published Thursday, 20 September 2012
The first conference where tenants can air their views on next year's rent levels will be held on Saturday 6 October.
The event, which will be run by tenants for tenants, will take place between 9am and 1pm in Committee Room 1 at Council Headquarters, Almada Street, Hamilton.
This is the start of an annual series of meetings where the council gives council-house tenants a chance to be part of the process of setting their rent levels for the coming year.
Planning meetings have already been taking place with tenant representatives for several months regarding the ways that tenants will be consulted on rent-setting, resulting in a number of events being staged over the next few months.
For this years conference tenants have requested that particular emphasis is given to the impact to rents following planned changes in the UK Government's welfare reforms.
Therefore the main topics which will be discussed on the day will be:
- Key changes in welfare benefits
- Implications for Council tenants and other service users
- Impact on Council house rents
Presentations on the topics will be made by council officials and there will be plenty of opportunities for tenants to put questions to them and to discuss the issues with other council tenants from across South Lanarkshire.
A council spokesperson said: "It is really important that people take the opportunity to get involved and give their views as we'll be using all the feedback from this and other events over the coming months to set our rent levels for next year."
Anyone who is interested in attending the conference or who would like more information should email slproject@tis.org.uk. Alternatively you can call Alistair Reid or Lynne Morrison at the South Lanarkshire Tenant Development Project on 01698 527108.
Reasonable travel expenses will be provided where required.
Following the conference, there will be a series of meetings of the local housing forums in October and November. The focus of these meetings will be to further discuss and consider the options for setting the level of rent increase for 2013/2014.
To close the consultation events South Lanarkshire Tenant Development Support Project have arranged a tenants' 'Question Time' event in December - more information about this event will be provided nearer the time.
