Local media in Rotherham is reporting that a 50% rise in landlord licensing fees by the Labour-controlled council has come under attack from an independent member of the authority.

The local news website the Star reports that Taiba Yasseen questioned whether the rise would lead to higher rents, making housing more unaffordable for poor residents.

Yaseen is quoted as asking the council’s Labour housing chairperson: “With the council already struggling to accommodate rising homelessness cases, can you guarantee that those affected won’t end up in Carlton Park Hotel or other hotels due to an inability to pay higher rents?”

She also criticised the council for failing to maintain decent standards in its own housing and mishandling the formal consultation surrounding the private landlord licensing regime. She called it ”misleading, confusing and inaccessible.”

Labour’s councillor Sarah Allen responded that the fee for the license would not have to be passed on to tenants, and “some landlords choose to do so.

Allen continued: “The landlord can decide, as part of their social conscience, do not do so. RMBC has a homelessness and rough sleeping strategy, which quite clearly states that it is our intention to stop the routine use of hotels for temporary accommodation.

“When someone presents as emergency homeless, would we rather turn them away instead of using a hotel as our only available option?

“The current license fee of £521 has already been a feature of the housing market for the last five years, and without significant homelessness being attributed to the selective licensing declaration. The alternative to this sort of scheme is that significant number of Rotherham residents are forced into accommodation that’s not safe, and not for for human habitation. ”

The consultation closes next weekend.

You can see the local media story here: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/concerns-raised-over-landlord-licensing-scheme-to-crack-down-on-poor-housing-conditions-5021414