New regulations introduced by housing minister Grant Shapps that make it easier for landlords to rent their properties out to multiple tenants today won the backing of the Court of Appeal.
Pill LJ rejected an appeal by Milton Keynes Council, which claimed that the consultation process ahead of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (No 2) (England) Order 2010 and the Town and Country Planning (Compensation) (No 3) Regulations 2010 was unfair.
He backed a High Court ruling in April rejecting a judicial review challenge to the changes brought by Milton Keynes and two other local authorities, which argued that the changes that took effect on 1 October last year make it even harder for them to prevent “Houses in Multiple Occupation” that they claimed lead to additional traffic, crime and anti-social behaviour.
The Council argued on appeal that the changes introduced are radical and impact particularly on local planning authorities, and that they required the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to engage directly with those most directly affected during the consultation carried out in 2010. His failure to invite representations from local authorities, it argued, rendered the consultation process unfair and unreasonable.
However, Pill LJ said today that the fairness of the 2010 consultation had to be considered in the context of a very full earlier consultation being conducted by the previous Government in 2009.
He said: “In that consultation, over a longer period, the Council and all local planning authorities were given an opportunity to make representations on a series of options, which included Option 3 subsequently adopted by the Secretary of State in September 2010.
“I do not accept that, upon a change of Government policy, the entire process needed to be repeated. In 2010, the Government was entitled to conduct a more limited consultation, both as to the identity of the consultees and the content and duration of the consultation.”
He added: “The Secretary of State was minded to make the orders challenged notwithstanding the strong, articulated objections to them by local planning authorities, of which he was aware. The decision to make them was a political decision which the Secretary of State was entitled to make.”
The Order granted a new permitted development right enabling a change of use as a single dwelling house to use as a small house in multiple occupation, meaning that landlords can rent their properties out to multiple unrelated tenants without the need to apply for planning permission.
Local authorities facing problems with extensive numbers of HMOs in their areas retain the power to remove the permitted development rights, but the three Councils argued that, as a result of the new Regulations, local planning authorities that do so will face having to give landlords 12 months’ notice of their action, or pay compensation.
The Queen on the application of Milton Keynes Council and ors v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Court of Appeal (Pill, Arden and McFarlane LJJ)16 December 2011
Timothy Mould QC and Richard Moules (instructed by Milton Keynes Council) for the appellant
Tim Morshead QC (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the respondent.
