York’s new Labour council has pledged to make ‘disheartening’ council houses better to live in while private rental prices continue to rise.

The new council leader acknowledged York’s high private sector prices, but said the best way she can help tackle housing is by improving the conditions of council properties.

Leader Cllr Claire Douglas said: “What we can do is improve the quality of rented accommodation for people, because they’re paying an awful lot of money but in many cases it is not very good accommodation.

“Looking around to see what you get for your money is a bit disheartening to say the least.”

Cllr Douglas outlined her plan for housing, which was one of her three priorities as council leader alongside reversing the ban on blue badge parking in the city centre and giving primary school pupils free school meals.

“We’ve committed to extending licensing of landlords and doing what we can to make sure Airbnbs and short term holiday lets aren’t as prolific in the city as they currently are, because really in some areas they are quite dominant."

However, Cllr Douglas admits there is little councils can do, adding: “With some of this we need primary legislation to change.

“It can’t all be done by local authorities. 

“The council can do so much and then we need a new government basically to implement some of the commitments a Labour government would bring in."

Cllr Douglas also said housing needs could be targeted by addressing the needs of particular areas. 

She said: “That might be that a particular community needs a lot of litter picking, they need their verges looking after, they need bushes cutting back.

“We’ll have teams of people that are residents working in those communities so they can get to know them and report directly to them.

“We can be far more responsive.

“At the moment the council has a lot of outsourced, large contracts; faceless organisations that come in and do weed-killing and it’s one size fits all.

“We think that needs to stop and that’s what local people are telling us."

According to research conducted by Zoopla, York is the 18th most expensive city to rent in the UK.

It says renters can expect to pay an average of £1,034 a month to live in York, which shows an annual increase of 5.8 per cent. 

The data shows that York is more expensive to rent than cities like Cardiff (£1,031 pcm), Manchester (£982 pcm), Leeds (£905 pcm), Nottingham (£897 pcm) and Glasgow (£868 pcm).

However cities like Leeds and Sheffield are catching up to York’s high rent prices.

Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said: “Rental growth in York is currently sitting at 5.8 per cent – and is lagging behind other regional cities including Sheffield (7.9 per cent) and Leeds (8.6 per cent). 

“This is due to higher average rent costs in York of £1,034pcm, meaning there is less headroom for growth.”

Meanwhile, the Labour Party has begun to detail its potential housing policy.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told The Times he’d consider building on green belt areas to improve people’s prospects of buying a home.

“We need to have that discussion,” he said. 

“But it cannot be reduced to a simple discussion of will you or will you not build on the green belt. 

“This is why it’s important for local areas to have the power to decide where housing is going to be.

“Very often the objections that people have to housebuilding on the green belt are valid because the control by landowners and developers mean that the houses are proposed in areas where it’s quite obvious that there’s going to be a local concern."