As so many residents of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) have complained about living conditions, and a reluctance of landlords to improve them, Cllr Joanna Biddolph was keen to promote the council's consultation on HMOs but said that the proposals do not go far enough. One previous recommendation that has been implemented has not worked: that HMO landlords must apply for planning permission. A consequence is that HMO landlords have exploited the restrictions, applying for small changes serially until they have created an HMO. The consequence in the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate (GPGE) is that more and more family houses are being turned into HMOs, depleting the number of family homes that are so badly needed in the borough. Cllr Joanna Biddolph lives in the GPGE but made it clear she was reflecting the views of residents, not her own, during the debate on a council motion on HMOs. She argued that no more of its modest family houses should be turned into HMOs:
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
There are very serious points to this motion, of course. One outcome is that it should put effort into promoting a consultation. Promoting consultations should be fundamental and core actions – even though, as has so often been the case, residents know their views will be ignored.
In this case I hope it includes writing to all tenants – letters through doors will have to be delivered or posted – of HMOs on the register to ask them for their views. We shouldn’t just get the views of neighbours and other people who are concerned, like we all are, about what might be going on behind closed doors. And we should also be asking people to put forward any suggestions of addresses where there might be HMOs but they are not on the register – because those are people who are even more seriously at risk.
I had already promoted the HMO consultation to residents of Chiswick Gunnersbury ward who have complained about badly managed HMOs - their complaints resulting in raising standards or fines.
I have also already responded, based on the experiences of residents in Chiswick Gunnersbury ward of which I am one.
I feel strongly that the proposals as published do not go far enough.
When the proposal was made to require HMO landlords to apply for planning permission to change their properties into HMOs, I expressed doubts that it would make any difference. And it hasn’t, certainly not in Chiswick Gunnersbury ward. Inevitably, freeholders have seen how to work their way round the new rules: applying for small changes, incrementally, until they get to the point where they have developed a house into an HMO that it is then very difficult to turn down.
Residents know how the houses they live in can be adapted into HMOs and can spot what’s going on. They alert planning to this. After approving seemingly individual changes, residents believe that an application for change of use to an HMO will follow – with no reason for planning to say no.
No-one is against the principle of HMOs. As I’ve said before, all the flats I shared when I first moved to London would be classified now as HMOs. The two biggest concerns of residents of Chiswick Gunnersbury ward are: as is the case for all of us, badly-managed HMOs, and, in this case extremely significantly, the number of HMOs in one small section of the ward: the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate.
I live there so of course I have a personal interest – but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t listen to and act on my residents’ concerns. My first-hand experiences back up and echo theirs.
There are 52 registered HMOs in the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate. That is well over 10 per cent of the total number of houses there. This has significantly affected its sense of community – others have spoken about community but there is damage that’s done to community from HMOs when residents aren’t integrated for various reasons, and because too many HMO landlords seem not to care about the character of an area.
It has shifted aspects of the area that residents value. It was designed as a garden suburb, for families, 100 years ago this year, and is now a conservation area. Yet many HMO landlords pave over front and back gardens turning them into concrete wastelands. It risks becoming a no-garden suburb.
Residents there have had a tumultuous time with badly-run HMOs one of which, after many years of campaigning, locals struggling to be heard, resulted in the landlord being fined £130,000 for many infringements. And that’s the backdrop of where I live and my neighbours live.
The numbers point came to a head in 2021 when I was asked by residents to ask that no more HMOs be approved there. At that point there were 32, all but two of them in five of its seven roads. Now there are 52, still all but two in those same five short roads. It is far too many.
Additionally, turning these modest but well-laid out family homes with good sized rooms, into HMOs is reducing the number of family homes in the borough – family homes that we, as councillors, know are badly needed: you move out of a flat, into a house – it is very difficult to move out of a house and downsize for families into a flat, so we need more family homes to get that movement going.
Chiswick Gunnersbury ward has been flooded with applications for tall blocks of flats. At the local consultation session for Chiswick Tower late last year, the developer told me that the point of it being a block for co-living – that’s code for flat sharing or HMO – was to relieve pressure on houses being turned into HMOs.
Not true. HMO landlords can spot the opportunity of huge rental incomes – far from affordable – from separate rooms in houses compared with co-living HMOs. Our family houses will still be at risk.
The only way to relieve pressure on family homes being turned into HMOs is to stop new applications being approved. Stop. Full stop.
The effect of the proposed extension, which I support, will be to bring even more shared flats into HMO status. The balance is already wrong. Please say no, now, to more houses being turned into HMOs because they simply aren’t creating affordable rooms – £1,000 a month for a room is not affordable in our borough.
