A RENT freeze ceiling will benefit higher paying tenants in Burnley for several years.

Rent increases have been decided for Burnley's council houses which are due to be transferred to Burnley and Padiham Community Housing at the end of this month.

The company had guaranteed that rent increases would be limited to the rate of inflation plus one per cent for the next five years and intends to maintain that throughout the 30 years of its business plan.

From April that means that most tenants will have to pay an extra 2.77 per cent.

For rents already over £61.66 there will be no increase at all.

Director of finance Nick Aves told members of the housing and community services committee they would be frozen at their current levels until other lower rents caught them up.

"For some tenants this rent freeze will continue for several years," he said.

The rent ceiling means that the overall rent increase had been kept down to inflation at 1.77 per cent plus 0.83 per cent.

Garage rents will go up by 2.77 per cent.

Rents for new tenants will increase by about 20 per cent but would still be below comparable benchmark rents charged for similar properties by registered social landlords.

They will not be increased above £65 a week.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.