War of words over HMOs as council refusals overturned

A city council's decision to declare a series of houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) unlawful has been overruled on appeal.

After four properties were deemed to be inappropriate as HMOs by Liverpool City Council earlier this year, the Planning Inspectorate stepped in to overturn the decision.

The ruling comes as the row over the council's use of HMOs has heated up with the local authority's housing chief, Hetty Wood, saying "fearmongering and dog-whistle politics" was driving misinformation.

The comments were condemned by opposition figures, with the Liberal group leader Steve Radford calling for her to resign for being "out of touch" with the legitimate concerns of local residents.

An HMO is a property where three or more tenants who are not related to each other live together, usually with shared kitchens and bathrooms.

To operate without planning permission, HMOs with more than six occupants require proof of continuous use and occupancy for at least 10 years.

Documents revealed how, in one case, while the city council was aware of evidence to prove an eight-person HMO in Greenbank Park was in use, it did not request it. An application for a nine-person HMO on Hartington Road was also found to have been judged too harshly.

A total of six sites were inspected on 1 June. According to the city council, the property on Greenbank Park failed to prove continuous occupancy for the 2015-2016 period.

However, the Planning Inspectorate found the local authority felt "the onus is on the applicant" to prove this was the case, rather than request the relevant documentation.

In the appeal, the evidence was provided and the decision was overturned.

A Liverpool Council spokesperson said: "While in these particular cases the council did not feel assured by the evidence provided by the landlord and therefore rejected the applications for a certificate of lawfulness, applicants exercised their right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, which independently reviewed the evidence and reached a different conclusion."

"This result does not change the council's position on the need for stronger controls over HMOs. While these appeals were about specific evidence, the council's wider work is about protecting tenants and balanced neighbourhoods."

Meanwhile, the row over the city's battle with HMOs has intensified after comments by the local authority's housing chief.

While the city council declared "war" on HMOs across the city as it unveiled its local plan to curb the number of them popping up in communities, housing boss Wood recently claimed there had been "fear-mongering" about them.

"I totally recognise that people have worries about HMOs and who is living in HMOs, but I think there's a lot of misinformation going on out there," Wood said.

"There's a lot of fearmongering happening and there's a lot of dog-whistle politics happening in terms of trying to wind people up.

"I think we need to look better and deeper into who is living in HMOs and we've had HMOs across our city as long as anything."

She said: "I think there's also a concern that the only residents that are going into HMOs are migrants, and asylum seekers.

"One, that's not true, but secondly, there's so much fearmongering around migrants and asylum seekers that is totally incorrect and totally wrong, and being whipped up by the far right to try and tell communities 'if you have asylum seekers in your community, you're not safe' and that has been put together with the HMO fearmongering."

"We really need to look into how many asylum seekers are in our city, who they are and the fact that they're coming from incredibly difficult places and they're coming here for peace, for a safe life."

In Tuebrook, people have described the impact of HMOs and short-term rentals on long-standing residents, including incidents of violence, drunkenness and general anti-social behaviour, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Radford, who represents Tuebrook Stoneycroft ward, took umbrage with what he described as Wood's "attack on the legitimate concerns of working class communities being undermined by the proliferation of HMO's as 'right wing scaremongering'".

He called for her immediate resignation as cabinet member for housing.

He said: "We believe she is totally out of touch over the impact on communities and the legitimate concerns of local residents.

"This shows a contempt for the views of residents and her utter failure to protect balanced sustainable communities."

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