Issue - meetings

Report of the Assistant Director - Economic Growth and Housing

Further to Minute No. 49 (1) of 5 March 2024 the Committee considered the report of the Assistant Director – Economic Growth and Housing advising that the council currently operated a Selective Landlord Licencing scheme in Bootle and Additional (HMO) licencing schemes in Seaforth, Waterloo and Southport; that these schemes placed obligations on the landlords to ensure that their tenants were aware of how to properly dispose of refuse from the property; and the exploration of whether additional licencing conditions could be placed on the landlord to prevent fly-tipping in rear entries by their tenants.

The report advised that as part of HMO licensing schemes, requirements were already in place relating to the external areas and refuse; but that the Committee wished to explore whether the licencing schemes could be used to compel landlords to have additional control over their tenants.

The report identified that robust proof was required to successfully prosecute tenants who breached the rules; that the Council was currently 20 months into a 5-year Licencing scheme and therefore was unable to add additional licencing requirements to the current scheme; and that additional requirements could be added to specific properties of concern, however, blanket changes to licencing conditions could not be introduced until 2028 when the current scheme ended.

The report concluded by detailing that the Council was currently working with several registered social housing providers who owned properties in the ‘Poet Streets’ area of Linacre Ward to look at issues relating to fly-tipping in rear entries; that regular joint inspections of the area had recently re-started to identify fly-tipping issues and ensure that this was cleared up as soon as possible, and that where evidence existed that was sufficient to take action against perpetrators that this happened; and that it was hoped that this approach could be rolled out in other fly-tipping ‘hotspot’ areas.

Members of the Committee asked questions/commented on the following issues:

·       concern was expressed at the limited resources currently available to deal with irresponsible landlords

·       context was sought on why people fly-tip

·       information was sought on the enforcement rates of people fly-tipping

·       praise was given for work done around Poet Street and Officers were encouraged to roll the scheme out borough-wide

·       lessons learned from good landlords and training offered

RESOLVED: That