Response - DETR: Selective Licensing of Private Landlords

By: Deborah Garvie
Published: January 2002

Response - DETR: Selective Licensing of Private Landlords

Shelter responded to a Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions consultation paper on the selective licensing of private landlords in low demand areas.

Shelter's response to the consultation paper raised four key considerations that we considered crucial to the design and implementation of a selective licensing scheme. Authorities seeking to adopt such a scheme should be required to:

  • demonstrate that they have active mechanisms for partnership and consultation

  • detail their policies on exclusions from social housing

  • demonstrate that their homelessness prevention strategies and services take full account of the potential consequences of the scheme.

In addition we wanted to see:

  • a Best Value indicator introduced to test the activities of local authorities to engage with all private landlords to achieve positive strategic outcomes for the area.