Tenants say council house rents 'good value'

A sizeable majority of council house tenants in Moray believe that the rent they pay represents good value for money.

Council house rents in Moray are among the lowest of any local authority in Scotland.

And the most recent survey of tenants has found that 84% feel their rent is good value for money, compared with 78% in the previous tenants’ survey in 2012.

An even higher percentage – 86% - said they were satisfied with the quality of their home compared to 79.6% four years ago.

However the survey, which gave tenants the opportunity to comment more generally about their neighbourhood and local environment, revealed that fewer were satisfied with the overall housing service provided by the council – 80% compared to 88.6% in 2012.

For the first time survey forms were sent to all 5890 council house tenants in Moray, of whom 1738 responded. Previous surveys were based on a representative sample of 2000 to 2500 tenants.

A council spokesman thanked tenants who had taken part in the survey and said that the higher number of responses provided more reliable results.

“A larger sample also means that sophisticated techniques can be applied to identify and prioritise aspects of the service that are most likely to have the strongest impact on overall satisfaction.”

The full results are still being analysed and the survey findings will be presented to the council’s communities committee in June along with an action plan to address issues raised in the survey.