HAMPSHIRE council tenants are to heading to Westminster today lobby ministers to stop “taxing” their rent money.

They want the Government to stop taking millions of rental income from councils which could be spend sprucing up their homes and estates or even giving them cheaper rents.

Tenants in Winchester and Southampton are joining forces with councillors and union leaders to press for change.

Winchester City Council will lose £9m, or 44 per cent of its rent income next year, while Southampton will lose £5.8m, almost 10 per cent.

It comes as council chiefs say they are being forced hike up rents on tens of thousands of homes by an average of six per cent in Southampton.

The rent rises are part of complicated rules set down by Government to bring council house rents in line with housing associations by 2024. Weekly average rents are going up to £66 in Southampton and £86 in Winchester. And in Southampton some tower block residents are being asked to pay an extra £5 a month for new closed circuit TV cameras and intercoms to boost security.

Alan Rickman, chairman of Winchester’s council-tenant liaison group, TACT, said: “We’ve paying £30 of our rent money back to the Government. The council is having to cutback on things it should be doing like refurbishing bathrooms and kitchens and with rent increases some people are really struggling.”

Frances Murphy, acting chairman of the Federation of Southampton Tenants and Residents Associations, added: “We are being penalised as council tenants. It’s a tax on tenants.” She said the proposed rent rises were getting “unaffordable”.

Mark Wood, from the Southampton branch of Unite, a union, said: “Our view is that councils should get all the revenue from sales and rents and that they could use that to borrow and build council houses. It would create work for the construction sector and provide affordable housing.”

The “negative subsidy” payments have forced Southampton City Council to make £1m of efficiency savings to continue to finance its programme of improvements to 18,000 homes and council estates.

Cabinet member for housing Phil Williams said: “We could do a lot with £5.8m. It’s important we get a fair deal.”

And Winchester City Council has agreed to axe refurbishment work to hundreds of its 5,000 council homes because of its shortfall.

The subsidy payments are based on a notional measure of their councils housing income and expenditure.

If a council has a higher income than its assumed it need to spend, the Government takes a “negative subsidy” and redistributes it to poorer councils.

A Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "We are working with a wide range of experts and practitioners to find a way forward through our review of council housing finance that is affordable and fair to all, led jointly by Communities and Local Government and Treasury.

“The review will report to ministers in Spring 2009, after which there will be a period of consultation."

Tenants are travelling to Parliament to support the House of Commons council housing group's inquiry.