A NEAR decade-long campaign to limit the number of Homes in Multiple Occupation (HMO) bore fruit on Tuesday as Coventry City Council voted through vital legislation designed to prevent them from blighting neighbourhoods.
But some councillors and campaigners believe the new Article 4 direction has come too late for some areas in the city to benefit.
The rule change, which will come into effect on September 30 will prevent landlords and property developers from turning some residential homes into HMOs without full planning permission.
The ‘Article 4 direction’ would mean residential property conversions to HMOs in 11 wards – including Cheylesmore, Earlsdon, Foleshill, Sherbourne and Wainbody – would need planning approval.
Some say the conversion of so many homes to HMOs, usually occupied by students, makes it harder for people to get on the property ladder and damages communities, while others see them as addressing a different and urgent housing need.
Coventry Action for Neighbourhoods has been campaigning for the council to adopt the Article 4 direction for more than eight years.
Its chair Paul Maddocks said the legislation had been a ‘long time coming’ as many other university cities across the country already had an Article 4 direction.
He said he was pleased it had finally been introduced and praised the catchment area – close to the university – but he called for the direction to be city-wide.
The council’s cabinet member for housing and communities, Coun David Welsh, said the current conditions people were living in were not acceptable and he hoped the Article 4 direction would stop people leaving neighbourhoods.
He would have liked to have a city-wide scheme but regulation did not allow it.
Conservative councillor Marcus Lapsa said there were concerns communities would be devastated by the negative impacts of HMOs as early as 2008 and questioned why the Labour council had not acted sooner.
He added the authority should monitor a potential HMO overflow into wards where the Article 4 direction had not been introduced and take action sooner rather than later.
Coun Welsh said, if the Conservatives had been concerned about HMOs for more than 15 years, they could have introduced an Article 4 direction when they were in power between 2008 and 2010.
