ePetition - Unfair landlord licensing

ePetition details

Unfair landlord licensing

We the undersigned petition the council to carry out a review of Nottingham City Council's Selective Licensing Scheme.

We believe areas of Nottingham have been unfairly targeted and included in the Licensing Scheme which do not meet the government guidance conditions for Selective Licensing.

Particular areas such as the Park Estate, Mapperley Park, Wilford and the City Centre are examples of areas we believe have been wrongly included. They include modern apartment developments, affluent residential suburbs and luxury homes which do not meet any of the conditions for selective licensing.

We urge the Council to review the proposed scheme and the areas selected to ensure they do meet the Governments conditions for Selective Licensing before the scheme is allowed to commence.

Started by: Ian Johnson

This ePetition ran from 15/07/2018 to 07/09/2018 and has now finished.

Nobody signed this ePetition.

Council response

Thank you for your petition which has been received by Constitutional Services.

Your petition has been forwarded to the Corporate Director for Commercial and Operations and will now be investigated. You should receive a response within 12 working days.

If you would like any further information or have any queries please feel free to contact Constitutional Services on 0115 8764305.

Yours sincerely,
Zena West
Governance Officer

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The Portfolio Holder for Community Protection, Councillor Toby Neal, has responded your petition as follows:

“Nottingham City Council closely followed strict Government guidelines on how to introduce this scheme, which involved providing very robust evidence to show there is a need for Selective Licensing. This included the outcomes of a full public consultation when landlords had the opportunity to comment. Due to the size of the Designation approval was required from the Secretary of State before it could be implemented. The Secretary of State scrutinised the Council’s submission (which included full details of why it felt the Scheme was necessary and how it had determined the areas to be included) and, having done so, both approved the Designation and set the date for it to come into effect. The Housing Act does not create any exemptions for “… modern apartment developments, affluent residential suburbs and luxury homes”. Just because an area may be affluent or premises may be modern does not automatically mean that those areas will be free from the issues on which the Council’s Designation is based, i.e. ASB, crime, deprivation and poor property conditions. It is inaccurate to suggest that the housing stock in these areas are all modern developments or luxury homes and this fails also to recognise that Selective Licensing is also concerned with the management of the property as well as its nature and physical condition.”

If you would like any further information or have any queries please feel free to contact Constitutional Services on 0115 8764305.

Yours sincerely,
Zena West
Governance Officer