We had a tweet from one of our readers tonight, he suggests that the rent for his Highland Council garage could rise an incredible 2500%
He went on to tell us that in cash terms that would be a rise from £39 to £936. This observer suspects that that would be a fair whack out of most household budgets in Nairnshire. We have forwarded Tams information to Oor Liz (via Twitter) to see if she can tell us whether Tam is merely unlucky or whether this will affect a lot of folk if it goes through.
To get a better idea of what is going on we had a look at the minutes of the Community Services Committee mentioned in the image that Tam posted with his tweet and with regard to garages. The minutes for the meeting on the 15th of February state:
"The continued difficulty in letting garages was acknowledged and alternative ways to address this were explored. It was suggested that they could be sold on the open market or, taking into account any potential parking issues, that they be used as house sites. Many were in a dilapidated state and attracted anti-social behaviour and ideally therefore they should be phased out. In addition, given that most were rented by non Council house tenants for storage and/or commercial/business use, there was a commercial opportunity open to the Council to increase the rent in these cases for garages and garages sites by more than the proposed 1%;"
The committee agreed: " a review of the use of garages and garage sites be undertaken."
More background here from the webcast of that meeting which indicates some of the dilemmas facing the Council with garages and some of the thinking going on. The video starts with Donnie Kerr it is also worth going to 2.22 in the video where an official responds to some of the points made.