An industry association’s latest figures exposes Liverpool Council’s licensing scheme in processing all applications will take nearly 150 years.

The council has trumpeted the importance of the scheme in its fight to wipe out ‘not fit for purpose’ housing across the city. However when council representatives presented their figures to the Liverpool Landlord Forum it showed that since the Selective Licensing Scheme was started on 1st April this year, there has only been granted a paltry 104 licenses, in spite of around 31,000 applications being received.

Working on the current rate of processing the local authority will take148 years to process all of the 31,000 applications.

The industry association contends that with the current ‘progress’ made how does the scheme have any real effect on the council’s targeting poor quality housing in the city.

The association previously obtained Freedom of Information data shows that between 2018/19 and 2020/21 of the 103 civil penalties issued to private landlords in Liverpool, 89 of them were for offences during the council’s previous selective licensing scheme. The information shows the council’s penalties were not issued for any banning orders, failing to comply with a property improvement notice, or any overcrowding notices. But the council did manage to issue two penalties for non-compliancy of management regulations in shared housing.

The type of penalties suggests that the Council’s civil penalty strategy has only been focussed on resolving administrative issues which include failing to apply for a licence rather than supporting its fight to improve housing conditions.

A spokesperson for the industry association, says: “If Liverpool Council really believes licensing is so key to ensuring properties are safe, it begs the question why it takes so long to process applications for them. At a time when the condition of housing is under such scrutiny, the Council is spending too much time administering a licencing scheme and not enough time taking enforcement action to tackle poor quality housing.