ANCHO has managed to keep its rents among the lowest housing association rents in Ayrshire, despite an increase of 2.8 per cent being applied to its base rent for the coming year.

Rent is ANCHO’s only source of income, apart from some grants for wider action activities and to install medical adaptations, and it pays for the services and improvements provided to ANCHO tenants.

Elaine Gibson, ANCHO director, said: “We try to keep our rents as low as possible, but costs go up every year and we have to make sure we have enough money to continue to provide an excellent service to our tenants. For 2015/16 our Management Board agreed to increase our rents by 2.8 per cent.

“This will increase our income by £73,000 over the year - enough to keep pace with costs and do all of the improvements needed. This equates to an additional £7.58 per month per tenant, on average. And the good news is that 83 per cent of our tenants still think our rent is good value for money. This compares well with the Scottish average for 2013/14 of only 76 per cent.”