WAVERLEY Council has admitted that it currently has no answer to the challenge of meeting the government's Decent Homes Standard for council homes, or balancing its housing revenue account. Blame for the situation is being heaped on the government, which helps itself to a massive 44 per cent of the rents from Waverley's 5,000 tenants. Current predictions are that the government's guideline for rent increases in April will be 4.4 per cent and that the government will seize an extra £1 million on top of the £9.5 million taken this year. It is a situation the council would not have been in, had tenants not voted two years ago to stick with Waverley as landlord, instead of swapping to a housing association which would not have had rent taken away. The council's finance porfolio holder, Mike Band, drew the executive's attention to "just how quickly we are going to run out on our housing revenue account... we will basically run dry without further support." As far as the capital programme is concerned, the council has £19 million to spend over the next three years, while Decent Homes work alone is expected to total £40 million. And he was not yet satisfied that the full extent of some of the problems had been fully recognised: "It may get worse before it gets better." Housing portfolio holder Pat Frost said: "I don't know what we can do. The government's stealing all this money from us - £9.5m from rents, which is likely to increase to £10.5m next year is really not helping us at all. "We really need to raise the profile of this particular issue. "We are going to be in a terrible state as far as the housing revenue account is concerned. That and the fact that we didn't transfer our stock is not helping our situation. "Frankly, if anyone has got any ideas we would welcome them because at the moment we don't seeem to have any ideas as to the way forward. "Whatever we do on rents, believe me, the government's going to take 50 per cent." Council leader Richard Gates commented: "It's early days, but what is crystal clear and completely outrageous is the fact that 40 per cent of our rents are going to the government." He said at one stage there might have been small comfort that they were being redistributed to other perhaps more needy areas, "although one can always debate what the definition of needy is". But articles in the trade press were now saying that the government is keeping what they describe as "a surplus", said the leader. "If they are merely pouching this to spend on whatever their other priorities are, that's doubly outrageous." David Munro added: "There is no logical or moral case for making any differential whatsoever, because our tenants individually are just as poor, just as disadvantaged as any tenant in a vast crumbling housing estate up in the north of England." Mr Gates referred to the added paradox that housing associations get to keep 100 per cent of the rents. "It's really a device to skew policy which hasn't worked because in Waverley's case, on two occasions tenants have voted to stay with us and they are being punished for having voted to stay with us." Mr Gates said that an official of the Government Office for the South East could think of only one council that was equally disadvantaged - ironically the Labour council in Crawley. "We're making all the representations we can," said the leader, but added: "I'm not holding my breath."
