HMOs in Oldham, Chadderton and Royton

Today, I raised in the Chamber the rapidly increasing issue of HMO, houses of multiple occupation, development across Oldham, Chadderton & Royton.

This was previously an issue with our pub industry, where we saw pubs on mass being bought up and converted for a profit, losing those focal points in our communities. Even pubs which were just about profitable couldn’t compete with the inflated income the same building could attract as the building was carved up into single rooms.

We are now seeing good, quality family homes being bought up by landlords looking to make a large profit by converting these family homes into HMOs, making a profit per room far more than the regular monthly rents for a family home, which are already eyewatering. This also means that working families who want to buy are losing out because it then inflates the sales market too.

Tied into this supply issue is the Home Office contract with Serco, who currently have hundreds asylum seekers placed in private rented properties across the borough, as well as the temporary use of hotels. Our borough has always played its part in offering sanctuary, but it can only ever take a fair and proportionate number to other towns if it is to manage the knock-on impact of family homes being taken out of the system.

This is a very real issue with losing more family homes is further highlighted with currently 500 children being housed in temporary hotel accommodation in Oldham, with such limited supply of family homes leading to there being nowhere to go for these families and their children.

We are in a housing supply crisis, we need more family homes and to stop the ones we have being lost to HMOs.

The Governments response was to blame local planning authorities for allowing the developments to go ahead. This is weak, the Government know that Councils are legally bound by national planning policy and in reality the Government knows that it is their own legislation, the National Planning Framework 2019 that has watered down planning regulations and left communities and families wide open and defenceless against developers looking to make a quick profit. Local planning authorities are too often unable to stop a development without the real risk of it being overturned in appeal, with costs awarded against the council.