Issue - meetings

At this point in the meeting the Mayor declared a pecuniary interest and withdrew from the meeting.

The Deputy Mayor assumed the Chair and proceeded with the meeting.

The Executive Member for Regeneration submitted a report for Executive’s consideration.

An Executive decision was made on 18th October 2022 to commence consultation on the designation of a Selective Landlord Licensing Scheme in Newport ward (known as Newport 2 area).  The report set out the rationale for commencing consultation and provided full details on how this consultation would be undertaken. 

The purpose of the report was to present and consider the outcome of the ten week consultation and to recommend that the area of Newport shown in Appendix A was designated for Selective Landlord Licensing.

The Housing Act 2004, gave local authorities powers to introduce Selective Landlord Licensing (over a five year period) for privately rented properties in areas experiencing low housing demand, significant and persistent anti-social behaviour or high levels of poor housing conditions, deprivation or crime. The purpose of such a scheme was to improve standards of property management in the private rented sector, and when combined with other measures, leading to improved physical, social and economic conditions.

Under the Housing Act 2004 Part 3 (Selective Licensing of other Residential Accommodation) all private landlords operating within the designated area were required to pay a fee and obtain a licence from the Council for each rented property. The conditions of the licence ensure that the property is managed effectively, and licence holders had to demonstrate their compliance. The fees were ring fenced to fund the staffing resources for the delivery of the scheme.

OPTIONS

Do not designate and continue with the existing arrangements.

Carry on with the existing arrangement using the current resources available without a dedicated Selective Licensing team.  This would have meant utilising current staffing and regulatory roles and managing the area through the existing arrangements.  Without a dedicated SLL team there would have been no legal controls to hold landlords accountable for their tenant and property management, there would be no dedicated staffing resource for the area to carry out mandatory tenancy referencing, pro-active housing standards inspections, or to respond to the antisocial behaviour.  There would have been a continued imbalance in service delivery between the two halves of the ward.

Do not designate the area and carry out alternative interventions.

Alternatives to Selective Licensing were considered in other wards prior to the designation of the North Ormesby and Newport Selective Licensing areas. These included voluntary registration and the use of traditional enforcement tools. These would have required significant additional investment by the Council to have achieved any sustainable change across the area.

Alternative interventions would have still required a need to ensure that proactive assessment of properties and an increased focus on renting and management practices was sustained.  While Selective Landlord Licensing was not intended to be indefinite, a shift to an alternative non-regulatory approach or only relying on traditional reactive enforcement tools was not considered appropriate  ...  view the full minutes text for item 106