New regulations introduced by housing minister Grant Shapps that make it easier for landlords to rent their properties out to multiple tenants today came under challenge at the Court of Appeal.
Milton Keynes Council claims that 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 that took effect on 1 October last year make it even harder for them to prevent “Houses in Multiple Occupation”, which they say lead to additional traffic, crime and anti-social behaviour.
However, in April, High Court judge Sir Michael Harrison rejected a judicial review challenge to the changes brought by Milton Keynes and two other local authorities, ruling that a 2010 consultation process was not unfair, following as it did a year after a fuller consultation on the issue of HMOs by the previous Government.
Now Milton Keynes claims that he erred in categorising the 2010 Consultation as little more than a “last minute check”. As a result, it says that he reached the wrong conclusion on the key question of whether the consultation was fair.
It argues 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. His failure to do so, it says, rendered the consultation process unfair and unreasonable. It argued that local authorities were not invited to make representations, and that, as a result, it was not given a full opportunity to do so.
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 Court of Appeal judges are expected to reserve their decision.