Salford council plans to limit concentration of student housing

Salford City Council has outlined new plans to manage the concentration of HMOs across the city.

The council suggested that the proposed changes could decrease “anti-social behaviour” in Salford. However the changes may have a negative impact on the students and young people residing there.

HMOs are properties occupied by unrelated individuals who share basic amenities such as a kitchen or bathroom. The residents of HMOs may be unemployed, full time students or typically low-income workers.

This form of housing provides flexible accommodation for people with short-term housing requirements or people who are saving to purchase a home.

The council are making efforts to reduce the high concentration of HMOs in areas of Salford as they argue the following impacts (amongst others) can occur as a result of high concentrations of HMOs:

• Anti-social behaviour, noise and nuisance
• Imbalanced and unsustainable communities, with higher levels of transience and less sustainable local services
• Pressures upon parking provision
• Increased levels of crime in the local area
• Growth in the private rented sector at the expenses of owner-occupation

Last week, councillors met to draft a supplementary planning document (SPD) aimed at managing the concentration of Houses of Multiple Occupants (HMOs) in the city.

The draft for the planning document states how plans have been “produced to better manage the provision of new HMOs throughout Salford by providing a threshold to guide the location of them”.

Cllr Mike McCusker said: “The reasons [for the SPD] are that although the majority of HMOs in Salford are well managed and provide decent homes, experience has shown that an over concentration of HMOs can have an unacceptable impact on the positive residential characters of areas”.

The main policy of the SPD is that no more than 10 per cent of the residential properties in any 100-metre radius should be HMOs.

In the meeting between councillors last week, they indicated that a Strategic Environmental Assessment is not needed for the HMO SPD and therefore the process to implement HMO controls can continue.