Southampton City Council is taking advantage of new powers made available by the government to better manage Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs). As a port city with 2 universities, Southampton has areas with large concentrations of HMOs, leading to parking problems and other difficulties.
New planning powers, called an Article 4 Direction will allow the council to require planning permission for new HMOs and will mean it is possible to refuse applications where they are inappropriate or set sensible conditions on the applicants.
The council has announced that it will implement an Article 4 Direction as soon as possible and on Tuesday I headed a delegation from Southampton and Bournemouth to meet with Civil Servants in London from the Communities and Local Government Department to discuss how the new powers will work.
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