Tenancy Strategy

West Berkshire Council is a non-stockholding authority, which means that we don't have 'council houses' in the traditional sense. Our social housing stock is provided instead by housing associations and other Registered Providers (housing providers who are registered with the Homes and Communities Agency).

It's our duty to produce a Tenancy Strategy [608KB] that can be used by Registered Providers to develop Tenancy Policies for their own stock (in response to housing reforms introduced in the Localism Act 2011). These reforms include the new Affordable Rent tenancy.

We work closely with Registered Providers and value the role they play in helping to meet housing need across the district. Ideally, we would like to see a harmonised set of rent levels, tenancy terms and renewal policies across the district, that are easy to explain to housing applicants and that respond to locally identified needs.

However, Registered Providers are independent organisations, and we recognise that they work across local authority boundaries, all of whom will have differing Tenancy Strategies. As a result, our Tenancy Strategy sets out broad principles that we expect our partners to work to, rather than providing a detailed set of policies.