David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Submission to the Adult Social Care and Housing Scrutiny Committee Inquiry into “Studentification”.

David Lepper MP for Brighton Pavilion

Further and Higher Education are an important part of Brighton and Hove life, adding to the City’s vitality and providing jobs of all kinds for hundreds of local people. Of course, as well as students at our 2 universities and City College, we also host thousands of English Language students of all ages each year – although most of this latter group are here for shorter periods of time.

Students add to our City’s vitality. They spend money in our shops, cinemas, theatres, clubs, cafes and pubs, at sports events, on public transport and as rent! Many take part in local community groups, join churches, etc.

About one third of the 7,000 graduates per year stay in Brighton after graduation contributing to our local economy and helping us to maintain one of the most highly qualified workforces in the country. Over the years this has helped to attract and retain major employers to the City.

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However, as an MP I have been dealing with individual cases of problems related to some isolated student households for a number of years in various parts of my constituency from the City centre off Western Road to Bates Estate on the Lewes Road.

What has changed over the last few years is that the issues which complainants highlight are now more often associated with greater numbers of houses in particular areas and so when problems arise they can be on a greater scale. Hollingdean, Hanover/Elm Grove, Coldean and Roundhill are some of the areas affected from which I have had complaints.

These are areas where there has been extensive “buying-to-let” in recent years with, what is seen by many residents to be, a loss of housing stock for first-time buyers and a proliferation of properties which are now HMOs or student lets which would once have been sold or let as self-contained flats for young couples and single people.

Problems mentioned by the 87 residents who met on 15th October to consider setting up an Elm Grove/Hanover Local Action Team are typical, They include –

• Increasing noise - especially late at night
• Over-development of properties with neighbours feeling they are being overlooked
• Low levels of maintenance, especially externally – neglect of windows, painting doors, fixing garden gates, maintaining gardens, lack of basic provision for storage for rubbish and recycling
• Rubbish left outside, especially end of term dumping
• Parking
• Loss of a sense of community - because the student tenants are not in any one place long enough to become part of it - with empty streets during holidays

Of course, many of these problems are not specific to student households in a City which has one of the highest proportions of privately rented homes in England outside London. ( Nationally 48 per cent of heads of household in the private rented sector are under 35, compared to 20 per cent in social renting and 13 per cent in owner occupation).

Many young people who are not students may also have difficulties managing their own homes for the first time away from the family home. And students are not the only private sector tenants who can find themselves living in badly maintained properties because of irresponsible landlords or letting agents who fail to carry out essential repairs, etc.

On a related issue in January the Government asked Julie Rugg and David Rhodes of the Centre for Urban Policy at the University of York to carry out a review of the Future of the Privately Rented Sector.

The review was presented to government on 23rd October. It looked at a range of issues including the professionalism of landlords, the quality of properties, and problems in private renting. The Government says that it will now carefully consider the recommendations before deciding next steps.

Among the recommendations made in the report were to introduce -
• “a light touch licensing system for landlords and mandatory regulation for letting agencies, to increase protection for both vulnerable tenants and good landlords.
• “a new independent complaints and redress procedure for consumers, to help end long drawn out disputes.”
I hope that the Council will give serious consideration to all the recommendations including these 2 and respond to any forthcoming government consultation on the report. Indeed, The Council might consider that, in the light of local experience, a “light touch licensing system” might not be sufficient” and then lobby accordingly.

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The Universities.

A central issue is the need for both universities to provide more purpose built student accommodation on and off campus, although, of course, there will always be a number of students who will prefer not to live in such accommodation.

The University of Sussex – in 2007, completed two new housing schemes providing 714 study bedrooms and has plans to develop further student housing. It is reported that the University of Sussex has sold a number of properties it owned in the City to private developers and that they are now used for student accommodation. This. of course, distances the University from any responsibility for problems.

The University of Brighton – included the need to increase student halls
of residence in its corporate plan for 2007-2012. Major new areas for
development such as the Preston Barracks site might provide potential for
more student homes.

The universities’ representatives at the Hanover/Elm Grove meeting (see Appendix) provided information about how their institutions advise on and monitor student accommodation issues.

Consideration should be given to putting that on a more formal basis with a common system adopted by both universities in conjunction with the Council and letting agents/ landlords organisations for minimising the chances of complaints and dealing with complaints where they arise.

University representatives should liaise regularly with Local Action Teams and other residents groups across the City and ensure that their contact details are known to residents and provide clear and consistent advice to students about avoiding neighbour disputes, as well as informing them of their rights as tenants and providing support for them to enforce those rights where necessary.

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Brighton and Hove City Council

Many residents query whether or not
the Council is using its powers to the full and I hope this is an issue which
the Scrutiny Committee will consider.

The Housing Act 2004
l
• Provided a general framework of powers and approaches for the police and other agencies to tackle anti-social behaviour
• Housing Act 2004 introduced a package of measures, that amongst other things, seek to improve the management of HMOs
• HMOs of three or more storeys and that are occupied by five or more people who form more than one household, will require a licence from their local authority. They can then impose conditions such as a maximum number of occupants.
• Local authorities have the discretion to extend licensing to other categories of HMOs to address particular problems that exist in smaller properties.

I was told in April 2005 that the Council would be reviewing its discretionary powers under the Act.

The Council should clarify what resulted from that review.

A frequent complaint I hear is that the prosecution process in relation to noise nuisance is often so long drawn-out that the offending neighbours have moved on before the process is over – and another set of noisy neighbours have moved in, meaning a new prosecution process must be started.

Is the Council using powers which I believe were given by an amendment in the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003 to Noise Act 1996 which will allow local authorities to issue fixed penalty fines of £100 without having to provide the other services provided for in the Noise Act ? I believe Fixed Penalty Notices can only be given between 11pm and 7am, that the noise must be measured from the complainant’s premises. Their value seems to be that no prosecution is needed.

The Hanover/ Elm Grove meeting is not alone in suggesting that the Council’s “noise patrol” service should provide a more extensive service which is more responsive to resident’s needs. (See appendix.)

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Landlords and letting/managing agents.

This, of course, leads back to the question of the responsibilities of letting agents or landlords where there is a succession of tenancies which cause a disturbance.

Should tenancy agreements always include clauses about neighbour disturbance and should the law provide for greater sanctions against landlords and letting agents who are reluctant to take action themselves? (See references to the Rugg/Holmes Report above.)

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The universities, students, landlords and letting agents organisations, the police and residents groups, including Local Action Teams, all have a role to play in improving the current situation in terms of quality of life for established residents and students and fostering community cohesion.

The prime responsibility must rest with the City Council as

• the local housing authority
• the planning authority
• having responsibility for a wide range of environmental services through powers given to it by government to take action.

The City Council, directly and through the Local Government Association and the City’s MPs, is best placed to lobby government for new policies and powers if it believes they are necessary.

There was an opportunity for such lobbying this year. Caroline Flint MP, then the housing minister, asked ECOTEC consultants to gather ideas from councils about non-planning solutions to the proliferation of Houses in Multiple Occupation in certain areas which focused on student housing.

I have asked the City Council for details of any contributions it made to that review but the reply I have received gives no details referring only to the Council being “aware of government indications of changes that may be introduced to the Use Classes Order to try and give English planning authorities greater control over “studentification”. There was no indication that the Council had made any attempt to influence policies by submissions to this review.

It is regrettable if that is so.

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ECOTEC HMO Report to investigate non-planning solutions consulted local councils, universities and student unions

The report was delivered to government in early October. The independent research sets out a series of measures that could tackle and stop the complex causes and symptoms of concentrated student neighbourhoods.

The measures suggested include new planning mechanisms and the widespread adoption of a number of the best common sense local solutions that can be easily adopted.

• Prevent new enclaves by considering changes to the Use Classes Order planning rules allowing for HMOs to be brought under greater council control. This has already been adopted in Northern Ireland.
• Capping and controlling the distribution and the dispersal of HMOs by using the local planning system to set up 'areas of restraint', which have been shown to help balance communities. Nottingham has already established a threshold of 25% per neighbourhood.

• Universities and student unions should develop housing and community strategies that include: community liaison officers; student codes of conduct; neighbourhood helplines; and use of authorised student accommodation agents to help protect students from bad tenancy deals. Many universities have already invested heavily in new student halls which could help ease pressures.

• Councils should target resources such as refuse/letting board collections, street cleansing, fly posting controls at key times in the academic year; establish landlord accreditation schemes; link the demand with regeneration opportunities; work with universities to consider purpose built accommodation; and make better use of their HMO licensing and empty property powers.

In a reply to a Parliamentary Question from me on 18th November the Housing Minister Iain Wright MP told me, “Brighton is a fantastic place, but its large proportion of privately rented properties creates an issue. On studentification and its associated problems, he will be aware of a range of possible planning and non planning proposals. He also mentioned the ECOTEC report, on which I am hoping to consult later this year.”

Where these proposals recommended by ECOTEC do not involve new legislation our Council should give serious consideration to them. Where new legislation is needed the Council should consider its appropriateness to conditions in the City and, where necessary lobby for it with the LGA and the City’s MPs.

My thanks to Nancy Platts, Hanover resident, for her research on this issue and for representing me at the Hanover and Elm Grove residents meetings when I had responsibilities in Parliament.

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Appendix

Note of ‘studentification’ meeting – Elm Grove residents – 15th October

The meeting which was attended by 87 residents, representatives of the Council, Councillors, representatives of t he police, universities and a student union. I hope that consideration will be given to the issues and recommendation discussed at it.

Students and residents

• Suggested that residents introduce themselves to student neighbours and find out where they are from so they know who to contact if problems occur
• Leaflet all residents with all the information they need to tackle the problem
• Issue a welcome pack of rights and responsibilities to students when they move in (Council and Universities have produced and A4 sheet headed ‘Don’t be a noisy student, be a good neighbour’ for residents to put through student houses)
• Information leaflets issued at meeting included tackling noise nuisance, cards on crime stoppers, useful contact sheet.
• Residents starting to move out of area because of problems

Landlords

• Where are private landlords and agents (main agent seems to be Parks)? Landlords not interested or not contactable.
• Residents need to be able to contact landlords – have panels outside houses (this is the case for some, but not all)
• Include clause on noise in contract (I think this already exists – not to be a nuisance to neighbours)
• Residents requested a list of all licensed HMOs from Council – Council agreed to supply

Universities and colleges

• Not always Brighton or Sussex University, some post-graduate or from language or music colleges.
• Contact details for local colleges, universities and councillors should be circulated to residents
• Brighton have a liaison officer, Sussex have accommodation officer to contact – Brighton Officer is trained in mediation techniques
• Sussex have a list of student addresses in Brighton, Brighton University don’t have a database they can search but will visit properties where there are problems
• It was said that Sussex University sold properties to developers. Local residents believed this prevented families from buying and the target market was developers. Feelings ran high about this and Sussex University defended their right to get best value from the properties. Issue of selling to ethical landlords was raised. University housing and liaison officers were prepared to act on problems and have stopped students finishing degrees and courses due to complaints about noise problems.

Over-development

• Houses over-developed – conservatories and dormers
• Conservatories – light pollution all night and residents could see into the property witnessing sights they’d prefer not to!
• Is there potential to limit size and number of HMOs as Notts Council and Northern Ireland are proposing ?
• Need student housing strategy

Noise abatement

• Currently available only on weekends until 3am. Cheap drink during the week in clubs, clubs close at 3am, noise abatement stops at 3am
• Noise abatement service needs to be available on weekdays – show of hands was asked for and looked unanimous!
• Noise is more of a problem during the week – people coming home late, taxi engines running, car doors slamming, people shouting, front and internal doors banging
• Noise service is not adequate – different houses in the same street are noisy on different days. Diary system not suited to this, the policy needs to be more flexible. Council have the powers to deal and residents need to report every incident so that Council have a full picture of all incidents. Residents complained that Council Officers just wanted to get them off the phone asap and issue a noise diary whether this was suited to the problem or not.
• Doors in HMOs are changed to fire doors – bang all day – door closers need to be adjusted so that doors don’t slam, but agents need to be accountable for implementing fire regulations
• Residents not complaining because of the need to declare noise problems on selling the property will affect their ability to sell at the right price

Other issues raised
• Loss of community
• Rubbish – divan bed left in the street
• Could Council introduce a by-law to tackle people living in vans parked on the roadway? Wellington Road - people living in camper vans outside the old Children’s Society building.
• Level – drinkers and drug takers
• Double parking
• No-one pays Council Tax on student housing
• Poorly maintained student properties

Recommendations

1. A student housing strategy is developed by the Council in conjunction with the universities, colleges and private landlords.
2. Sussex University and other colleges to take the problem seriously, take responsibility and make a commitment to tackle the issue, nominating a community liaison officer etc.
3. The Council set out a plan to tackle the problems caused by ‘studentification’ to include clear information and useful contact details for residents and students, measures to address the different noise problems by improving the times the noise abatement service is available, targeting problems of rubbish at particular times of the year when students are on the move, contacting the fire service or landlords to adjust door closers etc.
4. As a result of the plan, the Council should be able to establish what powers it already has under existing legislation and what, if any, additional powers are needed and to inform Communities and Local Government.
5. That any action is taken as quickly as possible before the situation and relationships between the various parties deteriorate further.