Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to restrict the number of House in Multiple Occupation developments in residential areas.

Local planning authorities already have planning powers to limit the concentration or proliferation of HMOs within their locality. They can remove the national permitted development right for smaller HMOs to protect the local amenity or wellbeing of an area by introducing an ‘Article 4’ direction which, once in place, requires all new HMO proposals to secure planning permission. We keep the powers to regulate HMOs under review.