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20/10/08 : Tackling rogue landlords, Meeting students’ needs - :
Many streets in East Reading have seen rogue landlords buying up properties under
‘buy-to-let’ and converting them - often without planning permission or building
regulation approval - for letting to students, not caring about refuse collection
and other environmental factors or the detrimental effects on the lives of neighbours.
Local residents, and local Labour Party branches, have been pressing Anneliese Dodds,
Labour’s parliamentary spokesperson for Reading East, and local Labour Councillors for action.
Responding to this challenge, Reading & District Labour Party has developed an action
plan in two parts, one to tackle the worst excesses of the rogue landlords, and the
other to ensure safe, decent and affordable accommodation for students, whom we
welcome to our town and into our communities, while looking to develop more mixed
and balanced communities - including homes for families and first-time buyers as
well as for the more transient student population.
The Party is calling for:
1. Co-ordinating the efforts of Council licensing, planning and environmental health
officers in recognition of the fact that many Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)
are in breach of more than one set of regulations.
2. Rigorous enforcement by the Council of the present requirement that all HMOs that
are 3 or more stories high (including basements and attics in residential use) and
have five or more occupants should be licensed, in order to ensure they meet legal
standards and are properly managed.
3. Regular consideration by the Council as to whether to extend licensing to other
privately-rented properties, for example in areas where there is a problem with
anti-social behaviour
4. Commitment of additional resources by the Council to the planning enforcement
section to allow it to act speedily and effectively against HMOs which do not
have planning permission
5. Recognising that servicing an HMO costs the Council more than servicing the family
property that was there before and looking at ways of recovering those additional
costs from landlords.
6. Issuing guidance on the Council’s website and to community groups and Neighbourhood
Action Groups about the statutory requirements on HMOs, about how to find out whether
a particular HMO has the necessary licence and planning permission, and about how to
eport possible breaches
7. hen an HMO ceases to trade and becomes vacant, acting speedily under the Council’s
Empty Homes Strategy to bring the property back into normal residential use
8. Extending the Council’s Housing Strategy, now out for consultation, to include
recognition of the need for student accommodation in Reading and to provide a framework
within which it can be planned
9. Pressing the University of Reading to work, certainly prior to any move to vacate
their Bulmershe site, with the Council and Thames Valley University (TVU) on a joint
University Housing Strategy aimed at ensuring availability of sufficient safe, well-maintained
and affordable accommodation for students in Reading
10. Working with Reading University and TVU on a Landlord Accreditation Scheme that
will seek to improve the standards of private accommodation offered to students in Reading
11. Establishing a Student Accommodation Partnership including representatives from the
Council, the two Universities and their student unions, major providers, and local
community groups to contribute to and then progress the University Housing Strategy,
addressing issues as they arise
12. Consulting on the introduction of resultant new planning policies that would seek
to restrict the concentration of HMOs in particular streets and promote more mixed
and balanced communities
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