Your licensing update for December

In our licensing blog this month, we round up active licensing consultations across the country – as well as a number of new schemes coming into force in the near future.

Active consultations:

Mansfield District Council

Mansfield District Council has launched a consultation to introduce selective licensing to the borough. The council says the scheme will improve housing standards, address anti-social behaviour and enhance property management.

The proposed scheme will work alongside Mansfield’s housing strategy, which aims to enhance health, wellbeing, community safety and economic growth by upgrading poor-quality PRS homes and targeting rogue landlords

The proposed licence fee is expected to range between £650 and £800 per property within the designated areas.
The consultation will run until 16th December 2024.

Further information about the scheme can be found on the council’s website by clicking here.

Worcester City Council

Worcester City Council is consulting on plans to renew one of its additional licensing schemes, which is due to come to an end next year. The scheme covers smaller HMO properties within the city as well as buildings which were converted into self-contained flats prior to 1991.

The fee for an additional license is £1,119 per licence for two to four occupants and £1,180 for five to seven occupants on a section 257 HMO.

The consultation will end on 6 January 2025, with further information about the proposals and the survey to submit feedback available on the council's website here.

Westminster City Council

Westminster City Council has launched a consultation on plans to introduce selective licensing in the borough, covering 15 individual wards. The proposed scheme has two designations. The first designation will apply to eights wards based on poor housing conditions:

Abbey Road
Church Street
Harrow Road
Knightsbridge & Belgavia
Little Venice
Maida Vale
Queen’s Park
Westbourne

The second designation will apply to a further seven wards:

Bayswater
Lancaster Gate
Marylebone
Pimlico North
Regent’s Park
West End
Hyde Park

The council states that the PRS properties in these wards are suffering from high levels of serious hazards above the national average and high levels of anti-social behaviour. These two designations constitute a single scheme that would come into force on the same date.

The proposed licence fee is £995 per licence, with discounts available for accredited landlords and charity properties housing vulnerable occupants. 

The consultation will run for just under 12 weeks until 19 January 2025. For further information on this scheme, and to respond, visit the council’s website here.

Salford City Council

Salford City Council is consulting on plans to renew a selective licensing scheme in the city.

The proposed scheme will cover parts of Broughton and Kersal, which were previously part of a selective licensing scheme which ran from 2016 to 2021. The council says the scheme is necessary based on low housing demand, poor housing conditions and anti-social behaviour in the area.

The proposed licence fees ranges from £390 to £570 per licence, with discounts available for accreditation and early bird applications.

The consultation will end on 20 January 2025, with further information about the consultation and how to respond available on the council's website here. The council can also be contacted via email: [email protected] by telephone on: 0161 793 3344

New schemes coming into force:

Waltham Forest

The London Borough of Waltham Forest has recently been granted permission by the Secretary of State to proceed with a large-scale selective licensing scheme to come into force next year.

The scheme will cover 20 wards in the borough, excluding Hatch Lane & Highams Park North and Endlebury. The scheme will apply to all houses or individual flats that are privately rented and occupied by a single household, or by no more than two unrelated persons unless is subject to any statutory exemption.

The scheme will come into force on 1 May 2025 and run until 31 March 2030. The licence fee is £700 per property.

For further information about the scheme, the council’s property licensing team can be contacted via email: [email protected] or via telephone on 0208 496 4949

Newcastle City Council

Newcastle City Council has approved new selective and additional licensing schemes to come into force from next year in the city. The new selective licensing scheme will cover:

Cowgate
Howdene Road, part of Howlett Road
Ravenburn Gardens
Part of Swinley Gardens in Benwell
West End
Columbia Grange
Denton Court
Lemington

It will come into force from 5 April 2025 and will run until 5 April 2030. The council says the scheme has been renewed in a bid to tackle anti-social behaviour.

The new additional licensing scheme will cover the entire city of Newcastle and will also run for the same period.

Properties occupied by three or four people made up of two or more households, and where people share facilities such as the kitchen or bathroom, fall under the scheme. The council says that there are persistent problems caused by anti-social behaviour and poor housing conditions, and that additional licensing will improve the management of these properties.

Fees for a selective licence are £900 per licence, and £1,000 for an additional licence. Discounts are available for accredited landlord and where properties have an EPC rating of C or above.

For further information about the new schemes, visit the council's website here or via email: [email protected]

North Lincolnshire Council

North Lincolnshire Council has approved a selective licensing scheme which will come into force on 20 March 2025 and run until 19 March 2030. The area will cover Crosby & Park Town, with the fee of £955 per property for a five-year licence.

For further information about the scheme, the council can be contacted via email at [email protected] or via telephone on 01724 296051. The public notice designation can be found on the council’s website here.

London Borough of Bexley

The London Borough of Bexley has recently approved a selective licensing scheme which will run from 13 January, 2025 until 12 January 2030. The designation covers the Belvedere Ward. 

The licence fee is £800 per licence, with discounts available for any properties that were licensed when the previous selective licensing scheme ended in August 2023, providing they apply within three months of the new scheme coming into force.

Online applications for the licensing scheme are now available. For further information about the scheme visit the council website here.

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has recently approved a borough-wide additional licensing scheme. It will come into force on 9 January 2025, ending on 8 January 2030.

The scheme will apply to small HMOs that are occupied by three or four people who fall outside the scope of mandatory HMO licensing.

The licence fee is £1,400 per licence, with discounts available via silver and gold compliance awards.

Applications for licences opened on 9 December 2024. Further information will be available on the council’s website here.

Coventry City Council

Coventry City Council has approved the renewal of the borough-wide additional licensing scheme for the city. The council consulted earlier on this year and approval was granted on 7 October 2024, with the scheme coming into force on 4 May 2025 and running until 3 May 2030.

The scheme will cover HMOs which are occupied by three or four occupiers and any HMO defined under section 257 of the Housing Act 2004.

The licence fee is based on certain eligibility criteria, and ranges from £820 per licence to £2,070.

Landlords who need to contact the council for further information and to apply for a licence can either email the HMO licensing department: [email protected] or ring the department on 024 7697 5467.

More information

The NRLA aims to respond to all property licensing consultations, and members can learn more about effectively responding to consultations in our free Licensing Toolkit.

The best way to keep up to date with licensing news and consultation information is by signing up to NRLA Licesning Support, a free member benefit, powered by our partner, Kamma Data.

Using Kamma, you can keep up to date with licensing regulations for up to 16 properties. Read the latest licensing update from Kamma by clicking here.