COUNCIL house rents in Thurrock are to rise by more than four per cent, the authority's ruling Conservative administration has decreed.

That equates to an increase of between four and five pounds a week for an average social housing rent property, while those residents living in properties which are deemed to be based on 'affordable rents' will rise by an average of more than £6 a week.

The increases are shown in the tables with this report.

In his presentation to Cabinet, which unanimously approved the increases, housing portfolio holder Cllr Luke Spillman, whose full written report can be viewed here, said raising rents was 'the responsible thing to do'.

Cllr Spillman, who has become the ruling group's loquacious architect of housing policy - promising new council homes in the civic offices rebuild, spending millions in a secretive property buying deal and demolishing Blackshots' tower blocks to build a new showcase estate - delivered a summary of reasons to put up the cost of council homes to borough tenants already facing a significant rise in the cost of day-to-day living.

He told fellow cabinet members: "This will allow me to keep instructing officers to do wonderful things like buying new council properties, so we can stop people moving out of the borough when they are homeless; so we can provide more wrap around services for people who are street homeless and so we can carry on building this pipeline.

"Thurrock is now building again.

"We are going to regenarate some of the most dilapidated estates around Thurrock,

"Raising rents is not something I do with any pleasure but it is necessary to maintain the integrity, the quality and the ambition to give people in Thurrock the housing they deserve."

Opposition housing portfolio holder Cllr Lynn Worrall told Nub News: "This 4.1 per cent increase in council rents will come as a real kick in the teeth for many Thurrock families who are already feeling the crunch, coming as it does on top of the triple whammy of an imminent rise in the cost of gas and electricity, real wages falling and the Tory National Insurance hike coming down the tracks."