Tuesday evening's public consultation event on private rented housing went very well. It was the second part of our scrutiny review into the private rented sector.
I would like to thank everyone who gave up their time to attend: officers, residents, landlords and councillors on what was a pretty freezing evening in February.
I chose the Hexagon for the venue because I was keen to get away from the usual stale council meeting format which doesn't appeal to many members of the public and show that the council can engage people outside the Civic Centre.
A few months ago it felt like I had become slightly obsessed with this subject (I did spend a lot of my free time over the past few months thinking about the issues and planning the scrutiny, wondering if it would ever actually happen).
There was certainly a degree of scepticism initially from some officers and councillors (Labour mainly) about whether or not PRS would be a good subject for scrutiny. I hope some of that has changed now.
I owe a lot to my constituents and others who have been contacting me about this subject on and off since 2006 asking for the issue to be investigated. To my mind it is a very important part of the role of councillors not simply to represent the council's policies etc to the people, but primarily to represent the views of local people to the council.
It has been pleasantly surprising over the past few weeks to find the subject matter clearly resonating with so many different people, from across the Town. When I first raised the idea I was accused by Labour of promoting narrow ward interests!
As much as anything else, I'm glad to have got this important but admittedly unsexy (at least to most councillors!) issue on the Council's crowded agenda.
I am working hard with my Panel members to ensure sure we achieve measurable impact too in terms of developing the Council's policies and approach on this area, as well as providing a check and balance. To this end we will be reviewing public comments received as well as comments received from members.
Helpfully, the scrutiny review coincides with the Council's developing housing strategy, which we are hoping to feed into as part of this process.
So what issues came up on Tuesday evening? Well, environmental issues connected with the impact of HMOs - rubbish,planning and licensing featured quite heavily as you might expect. The condition of private rented housing in some parts of Reading is clearly a concern for people, along with problems with letting agents etc Clearly a number of the issues can only be tackled at national level by changes to legislation, however, I think it is important that we check that all council policies in this area are working as they should be and that local people feel that everything that can be done to tackle issues is being done.
The need for a landlord accreditation scheme to be revived was pressed home to us by members of Reading University Student's Union and other students at the event. It was really encouraging to see so many students taking par. It loweredthe average of participants by about 10 years!
Landlords communicated problems they were facing in relation to various council processes which I hope can be looked into.
I thought hard when we launched this scrutiny review about how to get students and young people generally engaged and involved and I will be discussing my idea of setting up a Facebook group with RBC's marketing and pr department as I think it will be a key tool for getting young people engaged in council issues from now on.
I am most grateful to those officers who gave up their evening to answer the many complex questions and issues raised by residents. I am also grateful to HHCC Vice Chair Cllr Terry Byrne for helping to get so many local landlords to attend the event. They were certainly a critical audience in terms of some of their views about the council, but they did bring an important perspective to the evening.
I am aware that there was clamouring from some quarters for a public meeting rather than a consultation evening. We took the decision early on that this more consultative approach would be better for attracting informed comments, as well as comments from those people who might be put off by public meetings.
This was clearly a bit disappointing for the gaggle of Labour activists who turned up hoping to turn the meeting into a hustings for their parliamentary candidate. They have form however as sadly it was not the first time they have tried to muscle in on this scrutiny review. I prefer to campaign on issues, do the leg work rather than piggy back on other's efforts, but then that's just me.
Anyway, we had a good turnout from the Lib Dem team from Katesgrove and Redlands who have been actively campaigning on the issues around private rented sector for some time. There was also a smattering of Conservative councillors and some Labour stalwarts including the new Lead Member for Housing, Cllr Debbie Edwards. Rob White from the Green Party also popped in.
Needless to say it was a shame neither of the Town's two MPs bothered to attend. Given that private rented housing makes up 20% of Reading's housing stock this was an opportunity missed in my view.
Anyway, just a quick reminder that if you haven't already done so you can still submit comments on this consultation until 19 Feb to http://www.reading.gov.uk/privaterentedviews
UPDATE: Read the Reading Chronicle write-up of the event here.
Well done Daisy. I found this event very useful.
Posted by: Rob White | February 12, 2009 at 09:17 PM