The CIEH has called on the government to clarify local authority planning laws in order to prevent too many HMO properties being set up in one area.
The comments are made in response to the Department for Communities and Local Government consultation on HMOs, amid concerns that some towns and cities were being blighted by ‘studentification’, where a proliferation of student housing leads to an increase in antisocial behaviour, noise complaints and litter.
In its response the CIEH criticise the consultation for its narrow focus on student housing rather than the wider problem of HMO proliferation. According to the Rugg Review of the private rented sector, just 0.7 per cent of wards in England have a problem with high student concentration.
CIEH Principal Policy Officer Andrew Griffiths said:
“Our view is that studentification is very clearly a major problem, but only in a few areas. It does create a problem for sustainable communities when you’ve got a lot of students because of the sort of places that close down, things like nurseries, schools and certain types of shops.”
Mr Griffiths said that the most effective solution would be to require planning consent when a house ceases to be used for single family occupation and to set a clearer HMO definition.
He said:
“It’s about aligning the definitions between planning and housing. But we want to concentrate more on not what something becomes, but what it used to be. In other words a change from single occupation.”
Based on research carried out by specialist consultants ECOTEC, the government has put forward three options to curb HMOs. These include encouraging higher education institutions to work more closely with landlords, amending planning regulations to allow councils to refuse applications to shared housing with more than three residents and granting powers to prevent properties converting to HMOs.
Of the three options presented in the consultation, Mr Griffiths said that the “least worse” would be to redefine an HMO in planning regulations to shared housing containing more than three people.
The CIEH consultation response can be read in full here.