The London Borough of Brent has seen the largest annual increase in average private rent.
The average private rental home there now costs £1,824 a month in the year to February 2024.
That’s 20.0 percent higher than in the year to February 2023.
Since 2015 the average rent in the north-west London local authority has soared from £1,333 but the biggest increase was the jump up from £1,520 last year.
Before last year the previous peak in average rent was £1,519 in the year ending February 2017.
Brent is a borough in north-west London and is perhaps most famously known as the home of Wembley Stadium which opened in 2007 on the site of the original stadium which stood there from 1923-2003.
The borough was formed in 1965, has an estimated population of 339,800 and is made up of the major districts Kilburn, Willesden, Wembley and Harlesden, with sub-districts Stonebridge, Kingsbury, Kensal Green, Neasden, and Kenton.
Brent is also well-known as the home of Brent Cross, the first large enclosed shopping centre to be built in the UK which is credited with setting the standard for UK destination shopping when it opened in 1976.
The 2021 census found that the borough has England and Wales’ lowest proportion of people born in the UK, at 43.9 percent.
The only recipient of the Freedom of the London Borough of Brent is Nelson Mandela who received it to honour his “struggle for freedom and equality” which was “followed and supported” by the people of Brent.
According to the Office of National Statistics Brent has the second highest poverty rate in London and was the borough with the highest average unemployment rate in 2022 with 7 percent.
Brent had the largest price increase but was nowhere near the highest average rent cost, an award that instead went to the borough of Kensington and Chelsea with an average rent cost of £3,248.
Even including the national average, London was the area with the highest average rent inflation for the year ending February 2024, reaching a total of 10.6 percent beating out the national average by 1.8 percent.
Commenting on national house price and rents data, ONS deputy director for prices Matt Corder said: “Today we’ve published our first set of new rents figures, which utilise more data than before, allowing us to show both rental price levels and growth on a comparable basis, right down to local authority area.
“This new data shows that UK rental prices continued to grow strongly in the year to February, at their highest annual rate since records began in 2015.
“Brent saw the highest annual rental growth of all local areas and Melton saw the lowest, while rental prices were highest in Kensington & Chelsea and lowest in Dumfries & Galloway.
“Average UK house prices continued to fall, albeit at a slower annual rate than seen recently. Indeed, Scotland’s average house prices rose at their fastest annual rate for more than a year.”
