Stoke-on-Trent escapes for now

The private stock condition survey that the authority commissioned to identify poor housing conditions indicated that the majority of category 1 hazards were confined to 3 of the 14 areas proposed.
1 of the 14 proposed areas covering 20% of the total proposals was not included in the survey. There were some 3,000 properties outside the proposed areas with cat 1 defects but no resources to address these issues.
Another area covering a further 20% of the total proposals was included because it was a student area and where properties are empty outside term. This area has little ASB & high property prices.
The survey further indicated that property conditions inside the city had substantially improved during the last 10 years though private rented property in the area had doubled in that time.
The pilot scheme that the city introduced recorded that only 339 licences were issued from 539 privately rented properties and it ran at a loss of £70,000 excluding any contribution to office overheads. The 2 further schemes where designation ended last week are likely to have lost further monies but the authority refuse my FOI requests due to the number of previous requests submitted to obtain information on other issues relating to these proposals that were not included within their business case. The consultation results showed that overall across the city, the majority of residents objected to the proposals but the authority then only took the views of the residents who they say, lived within the proposed 14 areas into account. No letters were sent to surrounding areas which in itself seems to me to be a contravention of Government guidelines.

Is anyone else aware of which other authorities ,if any, have reapplied for a selective licence designation following its initial refusal ?

Reply to the comment left by David Lovegrove at 14/08/2019 - 14:49
It's perhaps too early...the new administration seems to be the ones providing light at the end of the tunnel. May's shambolic Govt. were approving them left, right and centre.

Reply to the comment left by David Lovegrove at 13/08/2019 - 15:24
David - which organisation carried out the housing stock condition survey? Was it BRE? If so, then it will be a desktop exercise based partly on information that could be up to 10 years out of date such as the EPCs. Such surveys do not actually go out and examine individual properties and have been used by local authorities to justify the introduction or continuation of licensing schemes such as Bristol and Bath plus I'm sure, others. These local authorities can't be bothered to do the leg work to show that properties in the PRS really may have poor conditions so it's the easy way out and needs to be challenged.

Martin, it was David Adamson & Partners from Edinburgh.
193 dwellings inside the proposed licensed areas ( from around 5,000 properties) were recorded to contain cat. 1 defects and 3,027 outside !
They quote poor insulation in pre 1919 properties but offer no funding for wall insulation.
50% of households were recorded never to have changed energy supplier and this presumably is partly the reason for high levels of fuel poverty that the authority wishes to tackle.
Is licensing likely to address these issues !