Highland Council house rent rise proposed
- Published
Highland Council is to spend £10m on building new council houses
The average weekly rent for Highland Council houses could increase from £67.60 to £68.95 from April.
The council's finance, housing and resources committee has agreed to the £1.35 rise.
The full council will be asked to confirm the increases at its budget setting meeting on 7 February.
A 2% increase will also be applied to hostel rents, gypsy/traveller site pitches, garage and garage sites as well as caretaking and CCTV services.
The full council will be asked to confirm the increases at its budget setting meeting on 7 February.
Highland Council said the increase would be below the rate of inflation.
Finance committee chairman Dave Fallows said the council had listened to tenants.
He added: "Our housing and property service has made efficiencies which for the third year running has allowed us to contain the increase to below inflation.
"This is good news for our tenants.
"It also allows us to maintain the progress in bringing all our council houses up to Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015 and to extend our council house building programme."
Highland Council will spend more than £15m on repairs and maintenance of its stock of more than 13,000 council houses.
During 2013-14, the local authority also plans to invest £17.5m in improvements to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard for existing houses and £10m to build new council houses.