Labour Councillors have announced a 4.4% increase in Council house rents will be implemented from 1st April. It is the first increase to be decided locally following the Coalition governments decision to delegate Council housing finance management back to Local Authorities.

Labour have said that they expect to implement more above inflation increases which will see the average weekly Council home rent rise to £81-71 by the time that they are due to leave office in 2015.

Under that last Labour government around £7 million a year was being siphoned out of the City to subsidise housing in other parts of the country.

Now local authorities are free to make their own decisions about how to balance the housing account.

One consequence of this new freedom is that York will be able to invest around £6 million in building 60 new Council homes.

In addition the programme of extending existing council homes to accommodate larger families will be reinstated. The programme was suspended when Labour took control of the Council in 2011.

There has been speculation that the Council will build the new Council houses on the Beckfield Lane recycling centre site with the former Fordland’s site at Fulford and the now redundant Burnholme school site also apparently possibilities.

We hope that they will avid cramming more houses onto amenity spaces or unsuitable garage sites.

More information is promised in April

NB. The Council has now announced its window replacement programme for the forthcoming year. Draughty windows in the following streets will be replaced in Dringhouses:

• Chaloners Road
• Highmoor Road
• Wains Road
• Lovell House
• Don Avenue
• Eason View
• Leeside
• Lerecroft Road
• Leven Road
• Swale Avenue
• Thanet Road
• Turnmire Road