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 Registered Providers can use to develop Tenancy Policies for their own housing stock. This is 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 respond to locally identified needs and are easy to explain to applicants. However, Registered Providers are independent organisations and often work across different local authorities with different 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.