Louise Haigh MP Fighting for Sheffield's future
New figures released by the House of Commons Library shows that the average rent in Sheffield has gone up by £96 per month in the last five years.
In 2013/14 the average rent in Sheffield was £522 per month but has shot up to £618 – an increase of 18%. At a national level, average private rents have risen by £1,900 a year compared to 2010, way ahead of real wages.
Spending over a third of income on rent is considered by Shelter and others as a benchmark of whether private renters are paying too much in rent. In Sheffield, 146,000 renters – 30% of all private tenants – are paying more than a third of net household income in rent. Nationally, 2 million renters – 44% of all private tenants – now pay over a third of their monthly income in rents.
The number of people in the private rented sector has increased by over 1 million households since 2010. One in four families with children now rent privately – equivalent to 1.6 million families.
The Tories’ record on private renting is at the heart of their nine years of failure on housing. In government, Labour will support private renters so that everyone can afford a decent place to live. We’ve set out plans for new legal minimum standards, indefinite tenancies, controls on rents and tougher enforcement powers for local councils.
Labour has also pledged to build a million affordable homes over ten years with prices based on what people can afford to pay, not what landlords or developers can get away with charging.