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Annual Reports

The National HMO Lobby began as an informal network in 2000. In November 2004, the Lobby was formally constituted. Since then, the Co-ordinator has reported annually on the Lobby's activities.

First Annual Report 2005
Second Annual Report 2006
Third Annual Report 2007
Fourth Annual Report 2008
Fifth Annual Report 2009

First Report 2005

The National HMO Lobby is an association of some three-dozen community groups in two-dozen towns in all parts of the UK, who are concerned to ameliorate the impact of concentrations of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) on their communities. The Lobby offers its members solidarity in adversity, exchange of information and collective campaigning.

The Lobby began as an informal network in 2000, when Leeds and Birmingham made contact. They were soon joined by groups in Hull, Loughborough, Nottingham, Sheffield and Southampton. In the next three years, the network was joined by more groups, in Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, Glasgow, Lincoln, Manchester, Nottingham, Plymouth, St Anne’s, Sheffield, Southampton and York. Solidarity was forged by visits between Leeds, Birmingham and Nottingham. And emails flew to and fro, exchanging information.

More groups joined in 2004, including Bath, Bristol, Durham, Liverpool, Portstewart and St Andrew’s, and more visits (Liverpool to Leeds) and emails were exchanged. In this year, collective campaigning (as opposed to individual efforts) began in earnest. Our two main projects were a meeting with the Minister for Housing, Planning & Regeneration (arranged by Nottingham) and continuous lobbying as the Housing Bill passed through Parliament. We also contributed to the revision of the Use Classes Order in Northern Ireland.

In November 2004, the National HMO Lobby was formally constituted, with 28 groups in 22 towns. We launched a website, and recruited more members, in Bristol, Canterbury, Edinburgh, Hatfield, Leicester, London, Southampton and Swansea. The Lobby has submitted representations to formal consultations on the Implementation of HMO Licensing, Householder Consents and Affordability & the Supply of Housing, as well as the Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan. We have adopted briefings on ‘What is an HMO?’ and ‘Studentification’. Canterbury has launched a national petition on HMOs & Council Tax. And eleven towns submitted evidence to Universities UK’s research into Students & Communities.

Our membership now comprises 38 groups (several of which are themselves in turn federations of local groups) in 26 towns. In the coming year, we can look forward to the parliamentary launch of the Students & Communities report (December) and a conference (January), to the postponed introduction of mandatory HMO licensing (April), and to a follow-up to last year’s conference on Students, Housing & Communities (in Nottingham, on 12 May).

Dr Richard Tyler, Co-ordinator, National HMO Lobby, November 2005

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Second Report 2006

The National HMO Lobby is now an association of some forty-five community groups in thirty towns in all parts of the UK, who are concerned to ameliorate the impact of concentrations of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) on their communities. The Lobby offers its members solidarity in adversity, exchange of information and collective campaigning.

The year since the last Report has been dominated by three themes, legislation, publications and meetings. In England & Wales, the provisions for the licensing of HMOs in the Housing Act 2004 have been implemented: in February, the relevant Statutory Instruments were published; and Part Two of the Act came into effect in April. Landlords were given three months grace to submit applications for licences. Nevertheless, by July, throughout the country, only a minority of landlords of licensable HMOs (3+ storeys and 5+ occupants) had applied. With this eventuality in mind, the Lobby published a Notification Form to report wayward landlords to the local authority [copies are available from the Co-ordinator]. Meanwhile, in Scotland, HMO licensing was embedded in primary legislation, when the Housing (Scotland) Act was passed in January by the Scottish Parliament. Its provisions will come into effect next year.

The most significant publication on HMOs to date was Universities UK’s Studentification: a guide to opportunities, challenges and practice, commissioned by the government and written by Darren Smith, which appeared in January. The Guide was the subject of a launch conference in London on 25 January, and of a Breakfast Seminar at the House of Commons on 27 June. On both occasions, the Lobby issued press releases, acknowledging the value of the Guide, but also identifying serious shortcomings. Both events received significant press attention (Mail, Guardian, THES), the latter in particular giving rise to correspondence in THES. Also in the media, HMO issues appeared in the press (Observer, Telegraph, Axis, Planning, Inside Housing [twice]) and on television & radio (BBC1 [twice], Radio 2, Radio 4). And letters by the Lobby and its members were published, not only in THES, but also in the Guardian and the Times, and even Country Life. Two further publications were valuable to our campaigning, DCLG’s Dealing with ‘Problem’ Private Rented Housing in July and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s The Modern Private Rented Sector in October.

The major meeting of the year was the Unipol Conference Students & Communities Revisited on 12 May in Nottingham, attended by representatives of a dozen of our members, where community concerns were pre-eminent. The National HMO Lobby was also represented at the two events promoting UUK’s Studentification (at the Commons event, by the Nottingham Action Group). The Lobby also attended three local conferences – in Belfast on 24 November, in Canterbury on 10 February and in Durham on 21 April. Finally, at the end of October, the Lobby gave evidence on behalf of Heslington Village at the University of York Public Inquiry.

Meanwhile, whilst its members worked locally, the Lobby continued to lobby nationally. In February, it made a representation on studentification to the Minister for Higher Education, and in the autumn, it responded to two consultations, the DCLG’s From Decent Homes to Sustainable Communities, and the Commons Select Committee’s Supply of Rented Housing. In September, the Lobby’s view of HMO licensing was aired in the professional journal, Inside Housing. Most of these responses drew attention to the need to amend the Use Classes Order. During the year, the target changed: in May, the ODPM was restructured as the Department for Communities & Local Government, and Ruth Kelly was appointed Minister. And our representatives in national and local government woke up to the value of concerted action – in April, members lobbied their MPs to set up a Parliamentary HMO Lobby (as yet unrealised), and in October, they lobbied their councillors to support Cllr Dave Trimble’s initiative to do the same for local councillors.

In support of its campaigns, the Lobby issued a number of Briefing Bulletins and Discussion Documents. Local HMO Plans (November), the Ten Point Plan (an action strategy, June) and Students in the Private Rented Sector (October) brought together useful information. And Accounting for Sustainability and Keeping the Peace (on the real cost of universities, and on student discipline, respectively, both in January) and Balanced Communities (April) raised issues for debate.

The Lobby continued to grow, and new members joined in Newcastle, Poole, Blackpool, Bangor, Manchester and York. We now number 46 groups (several of which are themselves federations of local groups) in 31 towns.

For the future, the key issue of planning control of HMOs still needs to be addressed in most of the UK (only Northern Ireland as yet has a Use Classes Order adequate to the task). Apart from continued needling, it’s difficult to see what more the Lobby can do on this issue. Our best hope perhaps lies with the projected national networks of MPs and councillors. Of course, to be effective, national legislation will have to be implemented by local planning policies.

There has been progress with HMO licensing, and regimes are now in place throughout the UK. They are not an answer to the problem of concentrations, but they are an invaluable resource. In England, the next step is to extend mandatory licensing (which applies only to larger HMOs) into comprehensive licensing in designated areas. This means the local introduction of additional HMO licensing.

The local level therefore remains as important as the national. Local groups will need to campaign for additional HMO licensing (Southampton is committed to its introduction), and where they are not yet in place, for local HMO plans (our Briefing Bulletin provides examples of progress to date). What’s really needed to address the problem of HMO concentrations in general, and studentification in particular, are local overall strategies. These are developing in the Action Plans in Leeds and Nottingham (and also hopefully, Canterbury). The Lobby’s Ten Point Plan (which emerged from the Unipol Conference, in response to UUK’s Studentification) offers a model of some of the 57 varieties if action that can be taken.

Further details can be found on the ‘History’ and the ‘National Developments’ pages of the website.

Dr Richard Tyler, Co-ordinator, National HMO Lobby, November 2006

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Third Report 2007

The National HMO Lobby began informally in 2000, and was formally constituted in 2004. The Lobby is now an association of over fifty community groups in over thirty towns in all parts of the UK. Its aim is to redress the impact of concentrations of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) on the cohesion and sustainability of local communities. The Lobby offers its members solidarity in adversity, exchange of information and collective campaigning.

In the past year, the Lobby has taken action on a number of fronts. Perhaps most importantly, it has kept the issue of HMOs high on the national agenda, at national conferences and their associated media coverage. These began with the meeting in Nottingham in February, held jointly by the Lobby and the new network of councillors, which was widely reported on national radio and in the national press. Other conferences followed, especially with attention to studentification – at NUS in London in March, at ASRA in Swansea in April, at UEA in Norwich in June and at UUK in London in October, all with the Lobby’s participation. Studentification in Swansea attracted media attention in May (Guardian, Radio 5). But as the Lobby continuously points out, it is HMOs which are the real problem, and this was underlined by two conferences by the BURA Seaside Network, in Scarborough (March) and in Rhyl (September), as well as the Balanced Communities Conference in Manchester (also September), all attended by the Lobby. Meanwhile in June, the Guardian ran a series of articles on buy-to-let, including HMOs (and including a feature on Nottingham). Finally, the One Show on BBC1 on 15 November focussed on HMO problems in Leeds, Sheffield and Treforest.

At the same time, the HMO issue has been directly impressed on the government. The Commons Committee on Communities & Local Government published a report on Coastal Towns (calling for action on HMOs) and the Department itself (DCLG) published a report on The Impact of HMO Licensing (which catalogued the effects of HMOs).

Our lobbying of MPs last year at last bore fruit – the All Party Parliamentary Group on Sustainable & Balanced Communities was formally registered in March, its members mounted a campaign in Parliament in May and June (an Early Day Motion, a Ten Minute Rule Bill, and two Adjournment Debates), and the Lobby attended the first formal meeting of the Group in June.

Also arising from our lobbying, the meeting of councillors in February resulted in the formation of the Councillors Campaign for Balanced Communities. Hitherto, this has remained a mailing list. However, local authorities themselves have been active - Bath, Southampton, Newcastle, Bristol, Canterbury, Swansea, Nottingham, Leeds and Sheffield have all adopted motions on HMOs. Also, HMO issues have been considered by the planning officers of the eight Core Cities. And Loughborough and Nottingham both sent delegations to the government. All of these initiatives called for amendment to the Use Classes Order.

Our liaison with HE has continued, though on the whole to little avail. NUS held a meeting in March, which was a prelude to the publication in June of Students in the Community. This could have been a productive move forward, but instead it exacerbated relations, libelling the Lobby and revealing NUS still to be in denial over studentification. Universities UK held a conference in October, to which the Nottingham Action Group contributed. Though the topic was ‘new directions’, none were forthcoming. But the Lobby took the opportunity to address an Open Letter to Our Universities (which awaits a response). Nevertheless, universities in Leeds, Loughborough and Nottingham have supported amendment of the Use Classes Order.

Meanwhile, the Lobby lobbied government directly. In March, Leeds, Loughborough and Nottingham simultaneously made representations to the Minister for Local Government & Community Cohesion. (But the ministerial team was reshuffled in June.) And then in October, the Lobby formally submitted a representation to the consultation on the Housing Green Paper. All our members of course do as much as they can, but the impact of the Storer Area Residents Group (SARG) in Loughborough is worthy of note – the Vice-Chancellor of the University addressed the Parliamentary University Group very positively last November, the local MP has been very vocal in the Commons, and Charnwood Borough Council sent a delegation to the Minister in May.

Nationally, the Lobby has continued to grow, with new members in Egham, Falmouth, Leicester, Pontypridd and Southampton. Nottingham has launched an impressive website. We are also acquiring an international dimension. In April, our ally Dr Darren Smith (Brighton University) organised a session on studentification at the Association of American Geographers Conference in San Francisco. And this November, Rob Payne in Ontario set up a new international website www.towngownworld.com, bringing together activists in Canada, the UK and the USA.

Encouragingly, the year’s activity is bearing fruit. Northern Ireland’s Use Classes Order has already been amended. Now DCLG has agreed to consult on the Order in England & Wales. “We fully recognise the difficulties that can arise with large concentrations of dwellings with group occupation and recognise that there may be a case for amending the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (as amended). We therefore propose to consult next year on proposals to amend the Use Classes Order in relation to HMOs.” (Hopefully, this will also encourage the Scottish Executive.)

Nationally, legislation is essential. But to be effective, it must be accompanied by local policies. These are under way throughout the UK (see our Briefing Bulletin on ‘Local HMO Plans’). But another DCLG initiative should encourage them further. “We therefore propose to establish a Taskforce with interested local authorities and universities to explore how measures might be brought to bear ... [including] activities such as neighbourhood management schemes, landlord accreditation and additional licensing for HMOs. We will ask the Taskforce to present their recommendations to Government in spring 2008 ... the community is a very important stakeholder and ... community groups should be represented by the National HMO Lobby on the Taskforce we are establishing. We are also looking into the feasibility of holding a conference early in the New Year to kick start the work of the Taskforce."

A huge amount of damage has been done by HMOs, of course. But there are reasons to look forward to some counter measures in the next year.

Further details can be found on the ‘History’ and the ‘National Developments’ pages, on the Lobby’s website.

Dr Richard Tyler, Co-ordinator, National HMO Lobby, November 2007

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Fourth Report 2008

In the last year, up to November 2008, the Lobby has continued to grow. We have lost half-a-dozen members - one disbanded (in Edinburgh), others have dropped out of contact (in Durham, Hatfield and York). On the other hand, we have welcomed a dozen new members, in Blackpool (Palatine Road Committee and King Edward Avenue West Committee Action Group), in Bournemouth (Winton Community Forum), in Brighton (Elm Grove Area Residents Action Group), in Edinburgh (Proprietors of Monkwood Court), in Manchester (Withington Civic Society), in Oxford (Divinity Road Area Residents Association and Stockmore Street Residents Association), in Salford (Gerald Road East Action Team [GREAT] and Albion Residents Group), and in Swansea (Swansea Sustainable Community Initiative). We now currently number fifty-eight organisations in thirty-six towns.

In the interests of solidarity, we again joined forces with the Councillors Campaign for Balanced Communities for a national conference in Nottingham on 13 March, hosted by the Nottingham Action Group (NAG), organised by Unipol. Much of the day comprised joint meetings, with a presentation by Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Sustainable & Balanced Communities; but the two organisations also held independent meetings, to look at local good practice. It was good to meet Lobby members from Canterbury, Leeds, Leicester, Loughborough, Manchester, Nottingham, Southampton and Swansea.

Through our email list, we have circulated information throughout the year. We took the opportunity of the conference to bring together several campaigning documents, and to launch them in a single glossy publication, Balanced Communities & Studentification. This outlines what we mean by 'balanced community', what we mean by 'studentification', and what priority actions can be taken by the various agencies concerned. The book is invaluable for presenting a case to local officers, councillors, MPs, and so on.

Of course, our main concern has been campaigning. A crucial avenue is direct access to government ministers, in our case, Iain Wright, Minister for Planning. On 15 January, he announced plans to consult on the Use Classes Order (UCO). On 5 February he was lobbied in London by a delegation from Nottingham, including NAG. He returned the favour on 13 May, visiting our colleagues in Loughborough and Nottingham. On 24 June, in a Parliamentary debate on the PRS, he reiterated his commitment to consultation. And on 23 October, he confirmed to the Lobby that he hoped to consult on the UCO before the end of the year.

A second campaigning avenue is through formal consultations. The most important this year has been the consultation on HMOs and the Use Classes Order, which was in prospect a year ago. This was commissioned from ECOTEC at the beginning of 2008. Members of the Lobby contributed to initial focus groups (in Leeds, Nottingham and Southampton) and then attended a Seminar at Communities & Local Government (CLG) on 9 April (see our Hymn Sheet). ECOTEC's Report was published on 26 September, as Evidence Gathering - Housing in Multiple Occupation and possible planning responses. Though we have some reservations, the Lobby welcomed the Report, especially its conclusion, "it is our view that they [non-planning mechanisms] have limited impact upon the longer-term issues surrounding houses in multiple occupation … For this reason, it is suggested that Communities and Local Government undertake wider consultation on proposed amendments to the current Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987."

CLG also commissioned a Review of the private rented sector (PRS) by Drs Rugg & Rhodes. The Lobby contributed to a Policy Round Table on 'Student Housing' in London on 4 March. The PRS Review was launched in York on 23 October as The Private Rented Sector: its contribution and potential. Its conclusions were disappointing, as the Lobby made clear in its Response.

Consultations were also carried out by HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England). In March, the Dept for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS) announced its New University Challenge. The Lobby commented on this. We also responded to the formal consultation by HEFCE, and attended a presentation by HEFCE in Leeds on 24 September. Incidentally, HEFCE also consulted on Sustainable Development in Higher Education: we took the opportunity to submit our paper on Accounting for Sustainability (originally produced in 2006). In addition, on 12 November, DIUS launched a Debate on the Future of Higher Education: again the Lobby submitted a response.

A third avenue for campaigning is of course the media. Education Guardian published a letter from the Lobby, on study in higher education, on 2 September. The publication of the Report on HMOs attracted considerable attention, including 'New law could end 'studentification' of towns', Guardian, and 'Are students ruining your town?' Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2, both on 26 September, and 'Flint cracks the whip on student digs' Mail on Sunday, 28 September (the last two included contributions from members of the Lobby).

(Members locally also use personal lobbying [of councillors and MPs], formal consultations [on planning and housing policy] and the media [press and broadcast] for their campaigns.)

There were a number of notable publications during the year, including the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's A Strategy for Houses in Multiple Occupation in Northern Ireland: Consultation Document April 2008, the House of Commons Communities & Local Government Committee's The Supply of Rented Housing 21 May 2008 (with contributions by the Lobby), Universities UK's Universities Planning Guidance May 2008 (referring to student housing), and the National Housing & Planning Advice Unit's Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Research Literature on the Purchase and Use of Second Homes, 10 October 2008 (to which the Lobby has responded).

A number of conferences were also held during the year, NUS's Students in the Community: Beyond the Campus at Leeds, 9 June 2008, the University of Brighton's Universities & Community Liaison in Brighton, 11-12 August 2008, and Unipol's Student Housing: The Market, The Community and What Students' Unions Can Do in Leeds, 12-14 August 2008. The Brighton conference invited Jo Calvert-Mindell from Canterbury to contribute. But the other two did not see fit to talk to any community representatives.

Our year ended with a valuable local planning decision, with national implications. In his Appeal Decision, dismissing a proposal for a student residence in Headingley in Leeds, on 19 November, a Planning Inspector said, "I find that the over-concentration of students in this part of the city would not sit well with the Government's objectives of creating socially cohesive and well-balanced communities as stated in [national policies] PPS1 and PPS3." This makes the invaluable point, relevant to us all, that concentrations of HMOs are contrary to national planning policy.

So another year sees us as a larger network, active on many fronts, well-established on the national agenda, and looking forward to consultation on HMO legislation - our second objective. The wheels are certainly slow - but thanks to our efforts, they are still turning!

Further details of the National HMO Lobby's activities are available on the 'History' and the 'National Developments' pages, on the Lobby's website.

Dr Richard Tyler, Co-ordinator, National HMO Lobby, November 2008

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Fifth Report 2009

The past year has been dominated by the government Consultation on our key objective, planning control of HMOs. After the ECOTEC Report of last year, we spent the first five months of this year waiting for the Consultation. In this period, our members in Loughborough and Southampton lobbied the then Planning Minister, Iain Wright, and Alan Whitehead and Andy Reed asked questions in the Commons.

Then in May, the Consultation paper was published, and for three months, the Lobby moved into full campaigning mode. First of all, we circulated a number of Campaign Bulletins, mapping out the issues raised (Bulletins 01, 02, 05, 06). Then on 12 June in Birmingham, we held a National HMO Seminar, where two-dozen delegates spent the day working through the Consultation paper - exhaustively! (Bulletins 03, 04, 07) Finally, further Bulletins outlined model responses to the Consultation (08-12). Many of our members sent in responses, and so did many allies. The Lobby's campaign culminated in a delegation to Communities & Local Government, where we discussed the issues with the officer responsible for the Consultation, and we presented the National HMO Lobby's formal response (a 32-page booklet) (Bulletin 13). Bulletin 14 gives a more detailed account of the campaign.

The Consultation closed on 7 August, and since then, we have been waiting, first for a Report on the Consultation exercise, and then for a decision by the government on what action it will take. After four months, both are still awaited. Meanwhile (ironically, once the Consultation was completed), the media took considerable interest in the issue. Immediately following the close, there were items in the Sunday Times, the Times, Channel 4 News and Planning magazine. In September, there were a trio of articles in the Guardian and the Observer. And then in October, there were reports on You & Yours (Radio 4) and the Politics Show (BBC1), as well as an irritable piece on 'disgruntled locals' in the Guardian.

Meanwhile, the Lobby continued to grow. New members joined in Bristol (Kingsdown Conservation Group), Chichester (RA Co-ordinating Group), Manchester ((SE Fallowfield), Newcastle (Brandling Village RA) and Salford (E Salford CC). And the Lobby contributed to conferences held by BURA (Turning the Tide of HMOs, London, 27 Jan), by Unipol (Rugg Review, London, 28 Jan) and by the Northern Housing Consortium (Private Sector Housing, Harrogate, 23 April).

Finally, it's worth noting that the August issue of the journal Environment & Planning A (Vol 41, issue 8), edited by Darren Smith, was devoted to 'Student Geographies', a series of academic analyses of studentification - all of which confirmed the need for our lobbying.

Now we wait for government action!

Further details of the National HMO Lobby's activities are available on the 'History' and the 'National Developments' pages, on the Lobby's website.

Dr Richard Tyler, Co-ordinator, National HMO Lobby, November 2009

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National HMO Lobby
email: hmolobby@hotmail.com website: www.hmolobby.org.uk