NEW: Petition launched urging residents to ‘rise up against HMOs’

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A Rugby councillor is trying to drum up opposition to HMOs with an online petition calling for an Article 4 direction in the town.

John Slinger (main picture) believes too many family homes are being turned into HMOs by landlords who often don’t have the community’s best interests at heart, causing problems with rubbish, crime, and noise.

He wants the Conservative-run council to limit their number and has encouraged 413 locals to sign his petition on Change.org.

Petitions

Another petition on the site, Rugby Borough Residents – Rise Up Against More HMOs! has garnered 324 signatures. It blames Rugby Council’s lack of policy on converting HMOs and says that in one street alone a developer is in the process of buying four homes in a row – turning each one into a seven or eight-bed HMO. This petition calls on the council to consider licensing all HMOs.

It explains: “HMOs are needed, we agree, but there needs to be some constraints put in place, some parameters set, a policy laid down that ensures that the whole town isn’t lost to this transient market that continues to take away affordable town centre family homes.”

Slinger’s fellow Labour councillor, Maggie O’Rourke, tells Warwickshire World she is not against HMOs being part of the housing offer in Rugby but that the growing concentration in certain areas is a concern: “Benn Ward has become a commercial property area.

“Every time a property comes up for sale developers can sense a commercial prospect and these are first-time buyer homes that are being taken away.”

Read more about petitions.

Pic credit: Rugby council.

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