Report by Head of PMO and Environmental Health and Housing (attached)

The Committee considered a report by the Head of PMO and Environmental Health and Housing (circulated previously) regarding the Feasibility of Introducing Selective Licensing to an area(s) within North Devon.

The Head of PMO and Environmental Health and Housing highlighted the following:

·         Selective Licensing was a tool that could be used by the Council to ensure tenants in the private rental market had access to safe and healthy homes.

·         If implemented it would become mandatory for landlords to have licenses for each of their private rented properties, and there would be a requirement for the properties, if within a designated area, to meet minimum standards of accommodation for their tenants.

·         The reason the Council was considering Selective Licensing in designated areas was to tackle poor housing conditions.

·         Stage One Evidence: the purpose of this report was to gain approval to gather and commission evidence across those issues, as set out in section 1.5 of the report to establish if there was a strong case for Selective Licensing.  If the evidence did support the need for Selective Licensing, the Council must also identify other measures to be introduced.

·         Stage Two Consultation: Local residents, landlords, tenants, and any other person likely to be affected by the Selective Licensing designation, must be consulted with prior to the introduction of a licensing scheme.

·         Stage Three General Approval: Local authorities would be required to obtain confirmation from the Secretary of State for any Selective scheme which would cover more than 20% of their geographic area; or would affect more than 20% of privately rented homes in the North Devon area.  Any proposal less than this would not require Secretary of State approval.

·         The latest Census (carried out in March 2021) showed that 20.4% of households in North Devon were privately rented.

Councillor Bell, Lead member for Housing passed on a comment from Councillor P Leaver in relation to the understanding of ‘migration’, which in this instance related to people moving around the UK.  He also went on to say that, he had researched case studies of other areas that had introduced Selective Licensing, which all seemed to work very well.  He listed as examples of this Newham, Liverpool, Blackpool and Nottingham.

In response to concerns expressed, the Head of PMO and Environmental Health and Housing gave the following replies:

·         The fee Landlords paid would be over a five year licensed period.

·         No decisions had been made to proceed with Selective Licensing but an exercise to gather evidence on whether to proceed was needed.  Once information had been gathered, a further report would come to members with options on how to proceed.

·         The reason for introducing Selective Licensing was to improve people’s living conditions, which in turn improve their overall wellbeing.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That Stage One Evidence, as set out in section 1.6 of the report, enabling officers and external support to research and evidence the areas of: low housing demand; anti-social behaviour; poor housing conditions; high levels of migration; high levels of deprivation; and high levels of crime;

(b)  That if the evidence gathered suggests moving to Stage Two Consultation, as set out in section 1.7 of the report, the Council must also decide what other measures it will take, along with other partners and stakeholders, to mitigate or eliminate those identified problems aligned to our Housing Strategy.  That suite of measures will enable the aims of any potential scheme to be achieved; and

(c)  That a report returns to Strategy and Resources Committee setting out those evidence based findings, additional measures, and with a recommendation as to whether to move to Stage Two Consultation , or not.