A Douglas councillor says that increasing the income threshold for public sector housing does not make up for ‘critical shortage of social housing’.

Devon Watson said this after the recent move to increase the income threshold for access to social housing by £3,500.

Single residents with no children earning below £34,500 are now eligible to apply for a public sector house, for joint applicants with no children, this is £38,000.

This increases to £40,000 for a single applicant with one child and to £43,000 for joint applicants with one child.

For a single applicant with two children, the individual must be earning less than £43,500, and for joint applicants with two children the threshold goes up to £47,000.

For a single applicant with three or more children the threshold is £47,000, and for joint applicants with three or more children it is £50,500.

Cllr Watson said: ‘Costs have increased for a lot of people and people now who may have been doing well on £30,000 a year may be severely struggling.

‘As a council, we’ve been asking for a more systematic approach, to link social housing with living wage and the general needs of the population and we think that there’s still a lot more balancing that needs to be done, but this is a long overdue move and in principle we support large parts of it.

‘A lot more people are going to require social housing and a lot more people are going  to  respond to that market demand and jump into the waiting lists.’

He added: ‘We have got people there who severely need housing, who may have disabilities, may live in poverty and they’re going to be competing on that list with the new entrants onto that list.’