Row erupts over council's plan for £609 landlord licence

Kersal houses.
-Credit: (Image: Sean Hansford / MEN)


A row has broken out at Salford council over plans for a 'landlord licence' costing £609. The council shared plans in July to bring in a licensing system for private rental properties in Kersal and Broughton.

It said the areas are impacted by a "blight of low housing demand" and that licences would encourage "good practice among a proportion of landlords."

Councillors voted to launch a consultation on the scheme which would impact more than 1,300 properties in the selected areas, and bring in a total of £800,000 for the council. But during a town hall meeting on September 16, a councillor slammed the proposal and said the fee would be passed on to tenants through rent hikes.

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"When costs for landlords go up, costs for tenants go up," said Andrew Walters, who represents the Kersal and Broughton Park ward.

He added: "I have spoken to several professional landlords and asked them, and without exception every single one said it would be passed on to tenants."

Salford Civic Centre.
Coun Walters stormed out of a council meeting about the scheme. -Credit:Vincent Cole / MEN

Mr Walters also questioned the council's "local intelligence" on housing demand, and said that there is in fact huge competition for properties in the area.

He called on the council to share evidence to back up its claims - but officers said much of this was "anecdotal" and not recorded, and anything that was documented could not be shared because of data protection concerns.

Mr Walters cited the Local Government Act 2000 and said data protection via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was not a valid reason for withholding the information from a council meeting. He requested a legal ruling - which was refused by the chair of the meeting - and then stormed out of the room.

Mr Walters later said that he believed the meeting was "no longer operating legally" and that "any decision made should be null and void."

Others in the meeting were generally supportive of the licensing scheme. Coun John Merry said that good landlords would "have nothing to be scared about" from being licensed.

He added: "The landlords I have talked to say that good landlords actually regard it as a badge of honour that they are accredited, they say they make a point of telling tenants that they are accredited. The good landlords do not want to be driven out by the bad landlords who are not providing the service they should."

Coun Tracy Kelly, Salford's housing lead, said: "I would like to see landlord licensing across the whole of the city.

"As a landlord ourselves with Derive [the council's housing arm], housing should be of good quality for all. Every home and every person renting should have a good quality place to call home."

The consultation on the scheme is due to cost the council around £7,500 in total, and will gather views on how it should work.

This includes the chance for the council to make 'appropriate amendments' to the proposals based on the feedback.