A government inspector has overruled a Kent council to grant permission for an eight-bed HMO in a terraced street — despite conditions being likened to a “1950s London slum”.
Maidstone’s planning committee refused the House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) application from Scott Nickless to convert a family home in Charles Street, Fant, in August last year.
Councillors were worried at the increasing density of such shared housing ventures in the area with one in 10 properties in Charles Street already HMOs.
They also feared that eight bedrooms would lead to overcrowding.
At the time, Cllr Maureen Cleator (Lab) likened the living conditions it could create to those overseen by Polish-born Peter Rachman, a notorious slum landlord in London in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
She said: “This is the human equivalent of battery hen farming, to put so many people into a single home.
“Yes, we have a housing issue, but we don’t solve it by allowing Rachmans.”
Cllr Kimmy Milham (Green) was equally outspoken, describing the proposal as “incredulous” and noting the home originally had just three bedrooms.
Expressing concern for the new tenants, Cllr Lottie Parfitt (Con) added: “There is no way this is an eight-bedroom house. Their quality of life will be unacceptable.”
But the government inspector, Terence Kemmann-Lane, disagreed.
He found that permitted extensions to the building had already turned it into an eight-bed home and said the number of HMOs in Charles Street, and in neighbouring Douglas Road, Florence Road and Reginald Road, was not so great as “to demonstrate dominance on any of these streets”.
Mr Kemmann-Lane added: “I am certainly not convinced that the proposal would result in an unbalanced community.”
The examiner also took issue with the local view the HMO would add to the pressure on parking places, pointing out the building could – and was being – used as a six-bed HMO without the need for planning permission.
He said granting planning permission would likely lead to an extra demand of only two parking spaces – and not even that because the occupants of HMOs are, in his view, “probably less likely to be car owners than the occupants of family houses”.
The planning inspector concluded: “I do not consider that car parking is a determining matter.”
He also challenged the council’s assertion the proposal would result in poor living conditions for the tenants.
He concluded the rooms exceeded the nationally determined space standards for one-person occupancy and provide “good-quality” accommodation, before granting permission.
The council could take some solace in the fact the inspector ruled that, while he disagreed with their judgement, councillors had put forward arguable reasons for refusal and he therefore rejected Mr Nickless’s claim for costs.
The application was submitted before the council adopted its new policy on the control of HMOs, and was therefore judged according to the planning policies that existed at the time.
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Planning officers had urged the committee to permit the application, and Cllr Denis Spooner (Con) had also sounded a note of caution, predicting that any refusal would be overturned at appeal.
“We will simply be giving false hope to the residents of Fant,” he said previously.
