Councillor George Davies introduced a report, which presented Members with the results of the consultation exercise for extending Wirral’s Selective Licensing Scheme to four more designated area in the Borough.  Those areas were known as:

·  Hamilton Square

·  Seacombe St Paul’s

·  Birkenhead West

·  Birkenhead Central

The maps and address lists were detailed in the updated Business Case in the report.

The Cabinet noted the reasons for implementing a Selective Licencing scheme in the four additional designated areas in the borough. There was a robust evidence base to justify the targeting of proposed areas and support for the scheme had been confirmed by 77% of respondents to a recent statutory consultation exercise compared to less than 12% who had disagreed or strongly disagreed. Furthermore evidence provided by the existing Selective Licensing Scheme had confirmed that private rented properties in these areas had an extremely low level of compliance with licensing conditions which further strengthened the case for rolling out this scheme to the proposed new areas. The report sets out the proposed changes to the existing Licence Conditions following operational and legislative changes introduced since the initial scheme was launched.  It was considered that these recommendations would improve living conditions and ensure well managed private rented properties in designated areas.

Based on the feedback from the consultation undertaken and the robust evidence used for the Business Case rationale, Members were asked to approve the extension of Wirral’s Selective Licensing Scheme for all tenanted private rented properties within these four designated areas under Section 80 of the Housing Act 2004.

Members were also asked to approve changes to the existing Licence Conditions following operational and legislative changes introduced since the initial scheme was launched.  These changes, which had been consulted upon, would apply to both the existing scheme and proposed scheme and were detailed in Appendix One of the report.

The scheme contributed to the Wirral Plan 2020 Pledge: ‘Good quality housing which meets the needs of residents’ by improving the quality of Wirral’s housing offer for local residents which was a key component of Wirral’s Housing Strategy.

The Council had used a range of tools for tackling poor management including property accreditation, healthy homes, landlord forums and training.  In addition, the Council used existing enforcement powers under the Housing Act 2004 to improve housing conditions including the operation of a mandatory HMO Licensing Scheme and a reactive approach to complaints from tenants and partner agencies.  The Cabinet noted that whilst these powers were effective at improving conditions, taking prosecutions and undertaking work in default were resource intensive processes.  Landlords were also able to avoid prosecution by doing a small amount of the required works but delaying completion or evicting tenants and sometimes selling the property on to a new owner.  In these cases, the Council may have to invest a significant amount of time into tracking down new owners before any enforcement action could be taken.  Selective Licensing helped to avoid wasted time tracking down the person managing the property by making it a mandatory requirement for landlords to apply for a licence in   designated areas.  Whilst this had some success, the benefit that Selective Licensing brought was a co-ordinated, targeted mandatory approach, where the ultimate sanction was that a landlord could be prevented from letting out properties. 

The current Selective Licensing Scheme had demonstrated that the targeted approach had accurately identified areas of properties in very poor condition which was not reflected in the low number of complaints the Council received about property condition from tenants.  This demonstrated that more vulnerable residents did not complain about their housing conditions, so without Selective Licensing it was highly likely that their hazardous housing condition would not have been addressed.  In the current Selective Licensing scheme, 136 dwellings had had serious hazards addressed since the scheme commenced. 

A Borough wide approach had also been considered but the Selective Licensing of Housing (Additional Conditions)(England) Order 2015 required new schemes to be introduced in areas where the private rented stock was greater than the national average at 19% without Secretary of State approval.  Whilst local authority areas with less than 19% could still request a designation by the Secretary of State, officers were not confident they could demonstrate a need for a Borough wide initiative.  This was due to the fact that in Wirral there were very distinct housing markets where the private rented sector was significantly higher, which were clearly concentrated in small pockets in the east of the borough, but there were also areas of high demand where the levels of private renting were much lower.  Recent evidence from Wirral Intelligence Service Report (Business Case (August 2018) supported the fact that there was significant polarisation of housing markets in the borough.  It was recommended, therefore, that the Council should focus resources in the areas displaying the worst problems of low demand and poor property condition.

This was a key decision and wards affected included Bidston and St James, Birkenhead and Tranmere and Seacombe.

Councillor George Davies informed that what the Council was doing was absolutely perfect.  There were four designated areas in the scheme (Birkenhead, Tranmere, Seacombe and Egremont) and following consultation there was now a plan to include four additional areas. The scheme had been absolutely well received by everyone.  Landlords had been taken to court for not following Wirral’s recommendations and fines received were justifiable.  This this had been well covered in the press. 98% of landlords had joined the scheme and saw it as the way forward.

Councillor Angela Davies commented that this was a fabulous scheme that helped to crack down on rogue landlords who made tenants lives a misery.

Councillor Janette Williams reported that decent quality housing was fundamental to physical and mental wellbeing.  She congratulated those involved with drawing up the scheme.

Councillor Paul Stuart described the scheme as a great initiative and informed that he was pleased that it had been extended.

Councillor Bernie Mooney informed that the scheme had made a real difference in the Egremont ward.  Residents had been blighted by one particular landlord.  This had now been tackled and addressed and the landlord in question now had to operate under different recommendations.

Councillor Matthew Patrick commented that a nice, safe place to live was fundamental to the health of residents.  He was proud of the efforts and work that had gone into this scheme.

Councillor Phil Brightmore reported that he was really grateful for all the work that had gone into this initiative.  He thanked Councillor George Davies in particular for all of his hard work on the scheme.

Councillor Phil Davies also thanked Councillor George Davies for leading on the Selective Licencing Policy.  The Cabinet had invested in it and would reap all the benefits, improving physical standards and helping tenants in terms of their health and wellbeing that were referred to in the report. He noted that the Council had no discretion on the areas that had been targeted.  The decisions on the areas included were based on certain criteria.  The additional four areas being included in the scheme meant that, in those areas, tenant’s quality of life would improve. The noted that extended scheme was due to come into force on 1 November 2018 and he wished it well.

RESOLVED: That Cabinet –

(1)  the proposal for the designation of Selective Licensing in the four additional areas (Hamiliton Square, Seacombe St Paul, Birkenhead West, Birkenhead Central) of the borough as set out in the Business Case to cover all private rented properties in accordance with Section 80 of the Housing Act 2004 be approved;

(2)  it be agreed that the Selective Licensing designation for these additional four areas shall come into force on 1 November 2018 with an anticipated commencement date of 1 April 2019; and

(3)  changes to the existing Licence Conditions following operational and legislative changes introduced since the initial scheme was launched be approved.  (These changes were detailed in the Selective Licence Conditions.)