Matters raised by Members of the Committee:-

Officer(s) response thereto:-

Could you please explain how it is not considered an HMO given it will have 19 units for unrelated people in one building?

An HMO in planning terms has shared facilities, so they would be bedsits or rooms that share main facilities such as kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and living arrangements. This application is for self-contained units. There are no shared facilities. They all have their own kitchenette with some facility for cooking and a separate shower.

The fire safety assessment has not been done yet. Is that correct?

I am not aware whether a fire safety assessment has been completed or not. It’s not a consideration that we are looking at under planning today. It would come under a different regulatory regime such as building regulations or housing legislation.

There is a fire escape route that is going to be blocked up under this proposal that affects both the top floor and the middle floor. I’d like the Officers’ views on the safety of the top floor and the middle floor please.

The stairs don’t seem to have any grab rail. If you were to slip at the top of the stairs you would end up at the bottom of the stairs as you would have nothing to grab hold of.

They’re not planning considerations. They come under a different regulatory regime such as building regulations or housing legislation.

Could we make the necessary authorities aware that we have noticed these issues so that they could look at it?

Yes, we can, through the informatives. I appreciate the frustration that planning has a very specific remit and unfortunately one of our remits is not to duplicate other legislation or other authorities’ roles, in this case, the Fire Authority and indeed health and safety and building regulations. So, there are effectively three regimes that would be looking to inspect this building. Ultimately, if the building fails any of those inspections, they may not be able to go ahead with the plans (if approved). They may have to revise them. If they must revise them, they will have to come back through planning. That is their risk. 

If this proposal was for an HMO, would policy LP11 prevent it?

Yes, I believe it would prevent an HMO in this building. I have assessed the building and accommodation for 19 units against LP11. I’ve identified 125 residential units within a 100m radius of the application site. Of those, 14 units form part of two registered HMOs which are publicly listed on the Council’s website in its HMO register. So, this approximates to 11.2% of residential units so it would fail that part of LP11. But this is not an HMO.

If we took the spirit of policy LP11 which looks to prevent too many buildings with multiple occupation in one area, then we are not in keeping with that – by calling this something other than an HMO we are circumventing the spirit of our own policy aren’t we?

This is not an HMO. In planning terms, HMO is defined as a small property of up to six units with shared facilities. This is for 19 units so obviously is far bigger than an HMO in that context and we defined this as sui generis use because this is essentially a group of self-contained flats and could have been put forward as that. The only difference here is that, specifically, they are seeking to restrict this to emergency use only. That does not fit into any category therefore it is sui generis. In terms of our policy, if the Council was to seek to apply that policy in spirit or not in the determination of this application and if that determination was to refuse and it went to appeal, we could possibly face an award of costs for an inappropriate use of our development plan. But, ultimately, we could also be defeated by a judicial review on the basis of our decision making. So that is why I am warning you and making it very clear that this is not, in planning terms, an HMO.

This is for temporary emergency accommodation. Twelve months is a very specific time. Could you tell me where that is written down? And how would we enforce it?

It isn’t written in any of the documents. The management plan condition does request that occupancy is managed in accordance with the management plan with a robust process for monitoring the inhabitants of the accommodation, the timescales, and licensing matters. So, we would conduct checks to ensure that they did not exceed the timescale of twelve months. It would be possible to add an extra line within that condition if you so wish to restrict the timing length that they could stay in the accommodation if you felt that appropriate

I would request an extra condition that sets out specifically that 12 months is our preferred time limit.

The 12 months came from the Council’s housing team as it is part of their policy basis. But this is an external property that is not subject to such policies specifically in their own right. So therefore, if you are imposing a timeframe we need to be careful about what time frame is specifically imposed to be reasonable. We obviously have some evidence to say that 12 months is a reasonable point where we draw the line – but what rationale do we use? My concern with 12 months is that if emergency accommodation was required near Christmas then 12 months later we would be moving them out at Christmas which would be unfortunate. My suggestion would be to consider 14 months to resolve that. If you were to require a condition I have some wording here. [The Head of Planning & Building Control then read out the suggested wording of such a condition. That wording can be seen in the Committee’s resolution below.]

Is there going to be a procurement process through the Council’s housing team? Or, if we do not can the owners implement that temporary accommodation processes themselves?

Planning has to consider this as a process that is open to anybody rather than just the Council. So, therefore, the Council could use this property facility in its housing role but, ultimately, other individuals / organisations may use this facility. Your conditions attached to any approval would apply equally to any party. So the control in planning terms has been set out.