Houses in Multiple Occupation - Coalition Government Reverse Labour Policy

• Posted by David Jones on 18th Jun ’10 at 12:57 UTC
• 0 comments

The Coalition Government have reversed the use class amendments which came in force in April 2010

Housing minister Grant Shapps has announced that councils will have greater flexibility to manage concentrations of shared housing known as Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO′s) in their area.

Under the Use Class amendments introduced by the labour government in April a new use class was created for small HMO's, (Use Class C4) this effectively required that planning permission was required before a house could be let to a small group of students.

The amendment announced by the Housing Minister retains the newly created use class (C4), but allows under permitted development (development which does not require consent) a use class change from a house to a student let and from a student let back to a house.

It will be for each local authority to decide whether greater controls are required within specific areas. In such case the Local Authority have the power to withdraw permitted development rights via Article 4 direction; this would remove the right to change from one use to another, but would generally only apply to a relatively small geographic area.

David Jones Chartered Town Planner and Head of Planning at Evans Jones LLP comments:-

”The controls introduced by the last Labour government were seen as a ’hammer to crack a nut‘. Whilst it is acknowledged that in certain areas problems exist, the legislation applied throughout England to all new small student lets. If the legislation had not been amended this would have undoubtedly led to a reduction in the availability of private sector student housing." The recent change announced by the Housing Minister is a pragmatic change will return power to the local authorities and allow authorities to control problem areas without impacting upon student housing whoich is not problematic “

For furhter information please contact David at E-mail

To learn more about Evans Jones Planning Services please click on the following link Evans Jones Planning