A city has been refused permission to introduce a licensing scheme that would have affected some 3,000 rental homes.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council wanted to introduce selective licensing covering 154 streets in 14 areas.
However, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has turned down the application, saying it did not meet the statutory criteria.
The plans had been opposed by landlords, but had been put forward by the council following a public consultation.
A council spokesperson said: “We can confirm we have received notification from the government department on this. We are in dialogue with the department about the decision.”
MHCLG has not given an exact reason for refusing the scheme, but councils have to seek its permission for any selective licensing scheme covering over 20% of their geographical area, or which would affect more than 20% of privately rented homes.
Local authorities have to demonstrate that areas have a high proportion of privately rented homes, and at least one other criteria, including poor property conditions and high levels of crime.
Among authorities planning new licensing schemes are two in London, Lewisham and Islington.
Many agents consider the licensing schemes to be a money spinner for the councils,
but do they help improve the lives of tenants?
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This is about generating income for councils. Crime and anti-social behavoir is a result of the authorities failing in their duties and using the facts to extort funding from the PRS by trying to link problems to Landlords. The failing or underfunded councils and police forces are the prime cause not a person/company renting out a property. If you look at the statistics used by boroughs wishing to introduce these boroughwide licencing (milking) schemes you will note the use of crime reports and antisocial behaviour report and show them on a map. They them say they are within 10 metres or 50 metres of a private rented property and try to put the blame on landlords. This is all serious mis-representation and shows how low and unprofessional councils are in making a justification to raise funding from the PRS. There is NO PROVEN CAUSATIONAL LINKS with these rogue statistics. Then our clowns in Government and our ex prime minister in particular insist on aboiltion of S21 the only effective tool a landlord has if his/her tenant is causing problems ( a true 1 watt lightbulb moment). They are insisting that if you have a potentially violent tenant affecting others or neigbours that the matter will have to go to court on a hearing basis and those affected will have to face their offender to give evidence against them. This will not happen in most instances and ASB will get worse. That does not even deal with the major costs involved where lawyers will find a million good reasons that their violent clients wouldn’t harm anyone and would make ideal baby sitters! Borouhwide licensing is a SCAM based on manipulated statistics overseen by politicians who do not solve problems and only “manage” their voters perceptions. As they say statistics and lies.
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