Responsibility and Community - HMOs and How My Eyes Were Opened




I have lived in Leamington Spa for over 25 years, making my home in the town centre where I have always enjoyed the special qualities of town life. But in recent times things have changed. The quality of life for everyone has diminished. The look and feel of the town, its very nature, are changing – and not for the better.

What has happened? Rubbish is strewn on the streets, noise and anti-social behaviour have increased, the whole ambiance has changed, touching all aspects of life. Parking is more difficult, homes run into disrepair, transience has grown. It all adds up to a general neglect and loss of community.

What has brought this about?

When I was first heard about “HMOs” I didn’t even understand what the letters stood for. I now recognise they hold the key to everything -- Houses in Multiple occupancy. An HMO is a furnished house or flat rented out to three or more unrelated people, who share facilities like bathrooms and kitchen. It’s the classic student shared house, let for a year to friends (or separately by room), who move on to be replaced by a similar group – organised transience!

A massive increase in HMOs explains what I have observed. Numerous poorly maintained properties all across the town. Neglected Victorian houses and faceless blocks, multiple door-bells, and rubbish overflowing everywhere, Amazon boxes on the pavement, weeds, cars and moving vans full of furniture and personal possessions, and a great coming and going all the time and at all hours. The intake in October, and the major departure in June of each year. Then repeat.

We are outnumbered two to one

Just in the central Leamington street where I live, there are 20 HMOs – a third of all properties in the road – and their tenants – of which there are approximately 123 - outnumber permanent residents by a ratio of around two to one.

Any wonder it has happened. There are fortunes to be made. Students are packed into these mostly sub-standard houses, with rents running anywhere from £140 to £400 a month and more. An HMO with six tenants might bring in around £3360 a month for the landlord. This means a total of around £35,000 in revenue for an eleven-month rental agreement.

But national laws absurdly exempt students from paying Council Tax, and HMO landlords are also exempt from business tax (where a small business in Leamington might have to fork out up to £8-10K plus service charges). There are in the region of 2,000 HMOs in central Leamington, 780 of them large buildings for 6 or more renters. These are making no monetary contributions at all to the community.

Costs borne solely by the residents

With so many houses converted to HMOs, and so many students living in them, Leamington has become a satellite dormitory for Warwick University, with all the costs and problems that inevitably brings. These costs are borne solely by the residents with no monetary contribution by the university and supported in their complacency, it seems, by the elected councillors.

How can this have come about? You would have thought that there would have been some planning – short, medium and long term – to direct the kind of growth a town like Leamington wants and needs. Surely it would be up to our Council officers and elected councillors, to look after the town, and maintain the quality of life in the neighbourhoods where its residents live. That is their responsibility. To think ahead about planning and control the direction of development before unwelcome changes happen!

Councillors refuse to talk about the issue

Amazingly, they claim to have done so, while at the same time claiming that they can do nothing about HMOs. A new Local Plan was adopted in 2017, and a new Neighbourhood Plan is due from the Town Council. But there is nothing in either document about dealing with the HMO blight. Councillors refuse to even talk about the issue.

You would have expected officers and councillors to understand the population’s needs, and aim to create mixed, balanced communities, do everything possible to improve the quality all kinds of housing? In short, to make this a better place to live, where residents can flourish.

They are ruining our town

The Council talks about that goal all the time, but they ignore the HMOs. The views of local residents are disregarded, while planning and housing control officers stand by. If councillors wanted to, they could initiate and lead a campaign to involve residents in bringing the HMO disaster under control and make the University step up to its responsibilities. But all I see are bureaucratic evasion from council officers and disdainful resistance from councillors. In my opinion they are not running our town, they are ruining it.


G A Holden

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