A west country council has dropped its plans for a licensing scheme after local landlords came up with “a number of other alternatives”.
North Somerset Council says it is unable to reveal what the other suggestions are at the moment but confirmed the scheme will not go ahead on November 1 as planned.
The idea behind the scheme was to drive up the standards of poor-quality rented housing in Weston-super-Mare town centre. The council decided to go ahead with it after a 20-week consultation.
But landlords in the area branded the move a “money-making exercise” and joined forces to set up the Somerset Property Network to campaign against it.
The group intended to lodge a judicial review against the council to stop the plan, which would have cost landlords £320 for a five-year license.
A statement from the local authority said: “The council remains committed to driving up the standards of privately rented housing across North Somerset.
“Once the additional feedback provided by landlords has been considered, a further review of the options available to the improve the condition of privately rented homes will be carried out.”
Members of the network released a statement to the local press in July saying: “We do not need the council to tell us how to run our businesses and charge us for the privilege of doing so.”
Comments (2)
Well done Landlords. Licensing schemes are just a money making schemes. Use of the existing powers can drive up standards. Increasing housing supply will not only drive up standards it will also resolve the housing crisis so spend the money where it achieves the right result.
I see no evidence that licensing has raised standards, certainly we are not seeing prosecutions out of the norm. Councils have used the idea (they know best) that it would, blindly listening to tenants pressure groups while seeing £ signs. There was and still is sufficient legislation to control property condition, just about everyone is covered by HSR. All that licensing can achieve is stop a landlord being one but only then after criminal proceedings and before they can do that, is serve notice to the landlord to put things right and is nearly always under HSR. If you see a landlord in court, the proceedings follow failure after notice. Look at the number of landlords and compare with the level of prosecutions, now that would be a statistic worth reading.