Following discussions and meetings with a number of constituents, I have been in correspondence with the City Council's Head of Democratic and Legal Services about the council's Houses in Multiple Occupation policies and concerns about the way policies are working in practice.
He has now advised me :
"Further to previous correspondence, I thought that you would wish to know that the Director of Housing is preparing a report for the meeting of the Licensing Committee on 5th February 2015 setting out the current policy on HMOs (the 12.5% in each census output area limit) and also how this has operated in practice.
The Committee's instructions will be sought as to whether to retain this policy or to review it.
If the decision is to review the policy, then a full consultation with interested parties will take place. It is our general practice to circulate consultation documentation such as this to all elected members."
I have posed a series of questions to the City Council about the number of census output areas where the 12.5% HMO limit has been breached, the reasons for this and complaints levels. I will thereafter be meeting with council officers to discuss the issues further before the report referred to above is presented to the Licensing Committee.
I am pleased to discuss issues around HMO policy with local residents at any time.