HMO research grant cannot be used for any other need

THANK you for publishing the article relating to the £65,000 grant provided by the Government. When the application was made the background of Prof Darren Smith’s research formed a major part of the submission and the Government Department supports the innovative work Charnwood Borough Council undertook and continues to undertake.

The grant cannot be used for any other community need as the Kingfisher resident suggests.

For clarification, the major part of the grant is being used by the council’s strategic and private sector housing team to undertake a number of specific, time-related tasks which are being monitored by the Government.

In addition, our planning and regeneration team was awarded a small part of the grant to be used independently to seek residents’ views on the effect of HMOs and this will inform our Local Plan.

In the past a threshold of 20 per cent was suggested as a guideline for the number of HMOs in a given area. Many landlords already rented out properties pre the introduction of Article 4 and these were not registered.

Post Article 4 many are still ignoring the Article 4 requirement and not registering for a change of use from C3-C4. As a consequence we now have reliable evidence of the community imbalance and the opportunity to reduce the threshold percentage.

Mr Gould has suggested that ‘What Conservative Councillors should do is not only make tougher regulations around the whole industry of rented accommodation but also provide the will and means of enforcing them’. I agree wholeheartedly and the Government grant will enable us to utilise the tougher regulations introduced in the Housing Act 2016 and the start we made on 1 October 2018 with tougher enforcement.

Coun Margaret Smidowicz