March 2022
District Councillor’s Report to Ordinary Meeting of Hemswell Parish 21st of March 2022.
Selective Licensing Scheme / Consultation:
The following was a Motion recommended and approved at Full Council on Monday 7 of March and is on the webcast to view. It was cross party.
The scheme is for private landlords to bring their properties up to an acceptable standard for their tenants. [not Housing Associations or Acis] such a scheme has been operative in the SW Ward of Gainsborough for the past 5 years, which has proved as successful as hoped for There is a regular inspection of dwellings to gauge whether tenants are respecting their accommodation.
The aim is laudable to identify the rogue landlords and to enforce them to improve their properties and place responsibility on landlords to address anti social behaviour, litter, the gardens etc
Moreover, the majority of landlords are’ good’ landlords, it's only a minority who are not however by including all landlords it raises the revenue to bank role the scheme. In other words its unfair on the good landlords.
The scheme recommends extending it to the North Ward of Gainsborough and to three rural wards in WLD namely; Hemswell Ward, Market Rasen & Wold View.
Regarding Gainsborough, it shall include Anti Social Behaviour etc whereas in the rural wards it is exclusive to condition of the properties
The scheme is self financing ie each rented property will attract a charge of £675 which will then be passed onto the tenants as will the cost of improvements.
The private rented sector is important, as it allows people to live in their area and not be pushed out with increased house prices. The fear is, that landlords will sell on their rented portfolio by giving their tenants a section 21 to quit and sell their houses thereby reducing the rented sector.
I personally think that there is sufficient legislation and in the pipeline, to address rogue landlords without such a scheme. There is an imbalance in responsibility by expecting landlords to fulfill a great deal as opposed to the tenant.
Sir Edward Leigh MP is supportive of the stand we have taken so far.
I spoke questioning both the integrity of the proposed scheme and the integrity of the consultation.
Motion 2
“Selective Licensing “In England the private housing sector accounts for 4.4 million or 19% of households compared with 4.0 million or 17% households in the social rented sector. Therefore private landlords clearly play an important role in supporting local authorities meeting local housing demand. WLDC introduced a Selective Licensing Scheme of Private Landlords in parts of the Gainsborough South West Ward in 2016 and the authority is currently carrying out a consultation process with a view of extending the scheme to other areas of the district in 2023. Whilst we welcome the consultation it has to be recognised that an online process has limitations regarding the current challenges faced by the private rented sector in our urban and rural areas. Clearly there are many advantages for the authority building improved partnerships with the private rented sector, including meeting our statutory requirements regarding homelessness, employment, domestic violence, mental health etc. They also support the authority meeting the housing needs of many individuals who have exhausted their options regarding social housing. Our citizens deserve good housing standards, the selective licensing scheme can improve the quality of accommodation however it has had limited success in many other areas such as anti social behaviour, community safety and crime levels
It is therefore essential before we extend the selective licensing scheme we gain a far better understanding of how many of these other issues can be addressed, There we ‘move’
1. The consultation process is halted and reformulated to address the limitations of the online consultation process including a district wide meeting between elected members and the private landlords of the designated areas.
2. The key findings are considered and implemented into the new selective licensing scheme.
3. A report is produced and presented to the following Prosperous Communities Committee prior to the new licensing scheme being implemented.
We so Move
Councillor Trevor Young Gainsborough South-West Ward Councillor [Liberal]
Stephen Bunney Market Rasen Ward Councillor [ Liberal]
Paul Howitt Cowan Hemswell Ward [ Independent]
Councillor Tom Regis Wold View Ward” [ Conservative]
One important matter is the impact on tenants if the scheme was to go ahead In a virtual consultation this question was explored and WLDC said that it had carried out an impact assessment however this was later clarified by a consultant for WLDC who said that an impact assessment had not been done. She explained there was a feeling that there would not be any real impact, but in my opinion this was a naive response because any incurred costs woold be naturally passed on to the tenants.
.An update is that WLDC is trying in my assessment to grenade on the motion as is evident on the press release issued the day after Full Council ignoring 2 and 3 of the motion and attempting to press ahead with the scheme at the end of May. All co signatories have written to WLDC opposing this move which seeks to flout the motion approved at Full Council and is in my opinion therefore undemocratic by its very nature.
Council launches new chatbot to support customer enquiries!
Big step forward for West Lindsey District Council as it pilots its first ever chatbot.
The Council has worked with Inform Comms to develop a chatbot which will answer questions and signpost visitors to our website. Initially it will focus on signposting people to the latest information they need relating specifically to the roll out of the separate paper and card collection.
The software is being piloted to help residents with their purple-lidded bin enquires, in order to take pressure off the customer services team. If it is successful the chatbot could be used to handle a number of popular Council related requests for example missed bins collections, garden waste.
Chatbots are designed to answer and resolve all initial enquiries without support from a customer service advisor. From this week the chatbot will be accessible on certain areas of the Council’s website, along with the Council’s Facebook messenger.
West Lindsey District Council
How to claim £150 off your Council tax Bands A to D
West Lindsey District Council is waiting for government guidance on how to administer the payment and funding for the discretionary scheme.
A leaflet will be going out with everyone’s council tax bill explaining how to get the rebate in West Lindsey.
Nova Roberts, assistant director, change management and regulatory services, at West Lindsey District Council, said the authority anticipated the payment would be made in April or May.
“The payments will be made via direct debit but we are currently in conversation with central government about how we can offer the payment to those who currently pay their Council Tax via a different method,” she said.
“In order to get the payment quickly, we would advise that residents sign up to pay their Council Tax via direct debit, which they can do by signing up via our website.”
For more information, and to keep an eye on the latest updates, visit https://www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/my-services/council-tax-and-council-bills/money-off-council-tax/council-tax-energy-rebate/
The trouble is that those beyond band D are asset rich but cash poor and there is no help for them
Residents will be able to ask the bot questions such as:
- ‘Do I have to have another bin?’,
- ‘Can I opt for a smaller bin?’
- ‘What happens if I put the wrong materials in my bin?’
All these questions and more will receive an automated reply, to help provide them with the answer immediately.
The chatbot is also designed to collect and pass on customer’s information to the customer services team if issues do not get resolved and this will be followed up personally by the Customer Services Team.
For further information contact:
Abi Cuffling, Communications Officer on (01427) 676580 | 07870 517526
Sales of houses new and old in Gainsborough and district:
It has been reported to me that in London thousands of people in rented accommodation cannot afford the high rents which are capped under housing benefit rules therefore landlords in London are purchasing dwellings in Lincolnshire and elsewhere where the cost of living is much cheaper and housing benefit is more generous than in the capital. These London landlords are focusing on Gainsborough and buying not one or three houses, but 50 and 30 at a time for rent as they become vacant or are built exclusively for Londoners and not for local people.
The effect is to increase the volume of the rented sector whilst increasing the prices of the housing market pushing our local people out.
Our own people are being edged out accommodation just as much as those buying second homes in prime spots in the country thereby denying the local people from living in their villages.
And another consideration is that this volume of people moving in from London will impact on the character of the town and place further strain on the need for essential services.
I am often asked where are the people coming from to live in the housing expansion and now I partly know the answer, from London, as housing benefit in the capital is squeezing them out of their communities. Legally there is nothing WLDC can do about this but I wanted to make you aware of the matter
Planning Matters:
Hawthorne Close Glentworth – This has now gone to the Ombudsman on behalf of the Community.
12 Weldon Road Hemswell. This continues to cast a long and dark shadow.
The Forge - no news as yet of the result of the Appeal.
Fire at Hemswell Cliff:
We are still awaiting a meeting with the emergency services about how this was conducted as none of the emergency services came out of this ‘smelling of roses!’ .In relation to this, there are concerns which Hemswell Cliff Parish Council has had for a few years about the storage of straw bales and their transportation without netting.
On 14 March straw bales on a lorry fell onto a car in the Nettleham area and killed the 39 year old driver and this kind of fatality nationally involving straw bales is not a rare occurrence.
Global Berry at Hemswell Cliff:
Global Berry is still in the frame to develop at Hemswell Cliff.