Newcastle City Council HMO Motion

Newcastle City Council HMO Motion

News Story :: 2007-04-14 15:24:20

Newcastle City Council passed a motion to lobby the Government about including HMO conversions in the planning process. The motion below was passed on Wednesday, 4 April 2007.

The Chief Executive of the City has been asked to inform the Minister, Yvette Cooper, of the views of the City Council.

MOTION TO CITY COUNCIL

This Council notes that:

*In England a family house and a house in multiple occupation ( HMO ) with up to 6 tenants are in the same Use Class, in planning terms, which means that planning permission is not required to use what was a family house as an HMO.

*In Northern Ireland the planning rules were changed in 2004, so that planning permission is needed to use a family house as an HMO.

*If the planning rules in England were changed to those pertaining in Northern Ireland, it would be much easier to control the distribution and local density of HMOs in the City.

Therefore Council resolves to ask the Government to change the planning rules in England to those of Northern Ireland, in respect of the use of family homes as HMOs.