Bedford Borough Council is consulting a new and revised Housing Strategy to cover the period 2021 - 2026 and a response to the consultation has been made on behalf of Lenwell on the basis that we want to see a private rented sector, that is providing a good quality well managed housing product.
The strategy has 4 overarching themes of the strategy are:
Specifically in the context of the private rented sector over, the last 4 years, the Borough has also seen growth in the numbers of privately rented homes from 18% of the total housing stock to now 23%, making the private rented sector bigger that the social housing sector.
Equally in this 4 year period there has been a steady rise in rents levels, with rents rising across all property types at 19.2%.
Source: Valuation Office Agency |
|
Housing prices have also seen a rise of an average of all property types of 23.4%:
|
|
Oct-15 |
Oct-16 |
Oct-17 |
Oct-18 |
Oct-19 |
Increase
Oct 15 – Oct 19
|
|
Detached |
£375,568 |
£433,742 |
£459,196 |
£470,856 |
£467,791 |
24.6% |
|
Semi |
£228,030 |
£263,347 |
£278,967 |
£286,738 |
£284,918 |
24.9% |
|
Terraced |
£182,326 |
£209,279 |
£220,665 |
£226,116 |
£223,526 |
22.6% |
|
Flat |
£135,096 |
£156,198 |
£167,668 |
£168,276 |
£162,489 |
20.3% |
|
All |
£232,835 |
£268,492 |
£284,696 |
£290,994 |
£287,412 |
23.4% |
Source: landregistry.data.gov.uk
However on the quality side of the provision of housing, the Council have recently received the resulted of a Borough wide housing condition survey, which raises concerns about the quality of some of the homes in the private rented sector. The report identifies that 16% of properties in the private rented sector may have category 1 Housing Health and Safety System (HHSRS) hazards. The full report can be accessed via these links:
In our response, we raised 2 issues about the enforcement of housing standards and compliance with legislative requirements. We expressed surprise that the draft strategy acknowledges that there have not been any activities in the Borough that have fulfilled the criteria for an entry onto the national database of rogue landlords and agents since its introduction. Equally there is no narrative about the scale of enforcement action being taken by the Council to ensure standards.
In the 2016 - 2020 strategy, one of the key actions was developing a Private Sector Housing Strategy in 2016, but there doesn’t appear to have been one developed. We feel that in view of the size of the sector, a specific strategy for regulating the private rented sector needs to developed, with the aim of driving up standards.
The Council will be considering consultation responses at its Housing Committee meeting in early November with the Executive Committee scheduled to agree the strategy in January 2021. We will advise on their decision and report on the final version, particularly in the context of the Council’s plans in relation to the private rented sector.
