by Our News Desk

HARD-UP tenants have been squeezed even tighter by rip-off landlords over the past year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed yesterday, with new figures revealing that private rents have gone up by 2.5 per cent.

That is the biggest 12-month increase since the start of 2013 and has been propelled by the crushing juggernaut of London’s nightmare housing market.

Households in London are having to stump up an average of 3.8 per cent more than they did a year ago to keep a roof over their heads — meaning a £500-a-month rent in 2014 now costs £519.

England’s 2.5 per cent rise pushed the Britain-wide increase, with Scotland coming in at 2.1 per cent and Wales significantly better at 0.8 per cent.

In England outside of London, the north-east and north-west saw rises of 0.5 per cent while rents in the east and south-east shot up by 2.6 and 2.5 per cent.

Landlords have put up rents by a 10th since the ONS’s private rental index started in 2011.

Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb warned that “sky-high” rents left people with “no hope of a stable future” and that the solution was a massive programme of building “genuinely affordable homes.”

And campaign group Generation Rent director Betsy Dillner said that “the government might cheer zero inflation, but it means very little to those of us who see any pay rises end up in our landlords’ pockets.” She called for house-building and rent controls “to lower the cost of living for all.”