More than 6,000 households in Shropshire will be worse off when changes to housing benefits are introduced, figures reveal.

Official data which has now been released by the Department for Work and Pensions reveals that families who live across the West Midlands region could end up losing £10 a week on average – or £520 a year – when the housing benefits cuts come into force in April next year.

Cuts in the local housing allowance, unveiled in the June emergency Budget, will hit 3,340 families in the Telford and Wrekin area alone.

Across the rest of the county, 2,880 households will feel the impact. Nationally, almost one million households will be affected.

A package of measures was announced by Chancellor George Osborne in his emergency Budget to cut the housing benefit bill by £1.8bn by 2014/15.

This includes capping housing allowance rates at £250 a week for a one-bedroom flat, £290 for a two-bed, £340 for a three-bed and £400 a week for a four-bedroom property. The proposed cuts also include restricting the bedroom entitlement to four-bedroomed rates and removing a £15 a week excess payment for tenants who find a good deal on rents.

And, instead of those on housing benefit being able to claim rent of up to half of the local average, they will instead only be able to claim up to one third.

More recently, ministers have vowed to make the system fairer. Government plans are being drawn up by the Department of Work and Pensions to slash housing benefit payments from 2013 to those tenants who live in houses that are too big for them – which could force many into moving into smaller properties.

The specific details are yet to be agreed but it is understood housing benefit claimants of working age who are living in a bigger property than necessary will have their benefit capped.

Union leaders have warned cuts to the local housing allowance will affect some of the “poorest and most vulnerable families”.

By London Reporter Sunita Patel