Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods)

This report provides the Committee with information on the recent consultation exercise completed in areas within Gorton and Abbey Hey, Harpurhey, Clayton and Openshaw to establish whether the declaration of a Selective Licensing scheme is required in these areas.

The Committee considered the report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) that provided the Committee with information on the recent consultation exercise completed in areas within Gorton and Abbey Hey, Harpurhey, Clayton and Openshaw to establish whether the declaration of a Selective Licensing (SL) scheme was required in those areas.

Key points and themes in the report included:

·                Providing and introduction and background;

·                Noting that The Housing Act 2004 gave the Council the power to introduce the licensing of private rented homes within a designated area, with the aim of improving the management and condition of these properties to ensure they had a positive impact on the neighbourhood;

·                Describing the consultation process and method undertaken;

·                An evaluation and key findings from consultation exercise;

·                A summary of the responses from both residents, landlords and agents and landlord organisations;

·                The findings from an exercise to inspect the external condition of those properties in the identified locations; and

·                Conclusions, noting that the results of both the initial and the formal consultation exercise showed the majority of residents supported the introduction of SL in all four areas. 

Councillor Hughes (Gorton and Abbey Ward) addressed the Committee, welcoming the proposed selective licensing areas within his ward and the improvements this would bring to private rented properties.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were: -

·                Whilst currently capped at a 20% limit of private rented housing stock, what progress had been made with government to press for a city wide selective licensing policy;

·                Could a landlord with properties in a selective licensing area be required to improve standards to any properties that had outside of the selective licensing area;

·                Had there been any evidence of the increase in costs to landlords being passed on to tenants;

·                Could anything be done to incentivise landlords to provide properties that had a better ECP rating than E; and

·                Was the other 80% of private rented properties benefit from the raising of standards in properties within selective licensing areas.

The Executive Member for Housing and Employment stated that the Council wanted to target its resources to tackle the worst landlords in the worse areas and there needed to be a strong evidence base to apply for a city wide licensing scheme, citing a number of Councils that had applied for this but had been unsuccessful.  He stated that this would be kept under review.

The Committee was advised that the Council could take action against individual properties that were in a poor state and these didn’t need to fall under the selective licensing areas.  In addition, the Committee was advised that there had been no evidence of an increase in tenant rents following increased costs to landlords to improve their properties.

Officers advised that there was little the Council could do to incentivise landlords to improve the ECP rating of their properties as there was little in the way of grant funding.

The Executive Member for Housing and Employment commented that he would hope the improvement to the 20% of properties that fell under a selective licensing area would have an impact to the overall improvement to the remaining 80% of private rented sector properties.

Decision

The Committee notes the report