28th
Jun 2021
A city council a has sent out an invitation to participants to take part in its consultation for further expansion to one of the country’s biggest private landlord licensing schemes.
This in spite of the fact that Labour’s Manchester city council undertook a similar consultation earlier this year in January, it is now claiming the pandemic regulations and lockdown constraints had severely impacted the number of responses it received back.
Currently there are four licensing schemes being run by the council with around 1,680 homes registered with the schemes in areas of high levels of PRS properties.
According to the council its housing enforcement and compliance team has had to carry out 403 homes’ follow-up inspections resulting in 282 properties making required improvements; landlords of 15 properties were slapped with fines for being unlicensed, non-compliance of licencing standards and ignoring improvement notices adding up to the total of £72,599 in penalties.
The council’s new plans is to expand its Selective Licensing to an additional four areas in the city which will cover over 1,400 rented ‘residences’.
A council spokesperson says: “Selective Licensing has had a real impact in the communities where schemes are already up and running.
“But we need input from local people, landlords and management agents to understand whether or not our proposals are right for the local community. For this we need your help, and I would urge as many people as possible to take part in this consultation.
“We will also be looking to expand landlord licensing to other parts of the city in the future – again, following consultation with local people – as part of our commitment to tackle rogue landlords and improve standards in the private rented sector.”
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