Portsmouth HMO landlords accuse city council of treating tenants like 'second-class citizens’

Speaking after the committee was heavily criticised by a planning inspector over its handling of HMO (house of multiple occupancy) planning applications, landlords accused councillors of having an agenda against shared homes.

‘The problem is that the planning committee is completely against HMOs as a concept,’ Antony Lane, whose successful appeal against the refusal of three of his planning applications prompted the inspector’s criticism, said.

‘What they are doing is preventing high-quality, affordable housing being made available when it is desperately needed.’

His applications, which he estimated he had spent £40,000 on, were submitted in 2019 but refused by the committee because it said they would ‘fail to provide a good standard of living accommodation for the occupiers and represent an over-intensive use of the site,’ despite planning officers recommending they be approved.

SEE ALSO: New cladding for Portsmouth tower block after fire risk assessment post-Grenfell fire

The appeal decision was published last month and said councillors have ‘a disturbing lack of awareness of basic planning procedure and law’.

‘I have found that the council behaved unreasonably across several fronts,’ the inspector said. ‘The planning committee’s decision, in particular its failure to heed the clear advice of its officers in relation to the previous appeal decisions, was unreasonable, irrational and flew in the face of established planning practice and law.’

Despite advice to the contrary from council planners, councillors have argued that any increase in the size of an HMO – even by a single bedroom – is a ‘material planning consideration’ that requires full planning permission.

The appeal decision prompted the council’s assistant director for planning and economic development, Ian Maguire, to write a report for the committee urging it to consider the issues raised in the appeal.

He said he was concerned the council would face ‘significant’ legal costs because the original justification for the refusal of Mr Lane’s applications had also been used to refuse several other similar proposals. Costs were awarded against the council in Mr Lane’s appeal, although these have yet to be calculated.

Despite the concerns raised in the appeal and by Mr Maguire members of the committee continued its approach of ruling that these applications required planning permission.

At their meeting on Wednesday, April 12, councillors said every application needed planning permission and rejected plans to increase a five-bed HMO in Oxford Road, Southsea to eight bedrooms because two of the rooms were 2sqcm short of meeting space standards.

‘This committee has always taken the unanimous view that the change of use of something that has got permission for six people to go above six people by clear logic has to be granted permission,’ committee member and council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said. ‘I hope the committee keeps to that view because it’s clear and obvious that that’s what it should be.’

He also requested that the council consider introducing new planning policies through its new local plan that would ban any increase in the size of an HMO with more than six bedrooms and a reduction in the proportion of shared homes allowed in the city from 10 per cent to five per cent.

Alwin Oliver, the vice-chairman of the Portsmouth and District Private Landlords’ Association said the committee had ‘clearly embarked on an anti-HMO campaign’.

‘HMOs are absolutely vital for housing students and workers in the city,’ he said. ‘Ironically many of the people who rely on them are employees of the city council.

‘Yet the committee is intent on squeezing smaller ones out of the city through licensing and some of the strictest planning requirements of anywhere in the county. They treat tenants and landlords like second class citizens.’

More than a dozen HMO landlords and managers, including Mr Oliver and Mr Lane, attended Wednesday’s committee meeting supporting the decision and comments made by the planning inspector.