As another UK town finds itself embroiled in a “students versus residents” debate, property investors with an interest in landlord insurance find themselves pinpointed as the bad guys.
In common with many towns and cities across the country the growing student population in the town of Leamington, Warwickshire, has created tensions in several residential areas. Local residents believe some districts are becoming “student ghettos” with the spread of houses of multiple occupation, and that unruly behaviour, rubbish left out in the streets and noise late at night is having a detrimental effect on their neighbourhood.
Some councillors, who are bearing the brunt of local resident’s complaints, are now looking to halt the spread of student accommodation in the town and say private landlords should start paying business rates and even commercial rates for refuse collections if they are profiting so much from the town’s residents. The councillors are highlighting the fact that landlords do not have to pay council tax on properties rented out to students and Allan Broad, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council, told the executive committee earlier this week that the owners of student accommodation were benefiting from council services without paying for them. He said: “Where you have what are clearly businesses providing student accommodation they should be treated like businesses.”
The Liberal Democrats would like the landlords to be treated on the same footing as hotel owners and pay for certain council services but while the Conservative leader of the council, Michael Doody, agreed to look into the matter, he doubted that new powers allocated to local government bodies would allow them to present the landlords with council tax bills.