Steve’s Private Member’s Bill, designed to clamp down on rogue landlords and developers, was talked out of time by local government minister Marcus Jones during its second reading stage on 28 October 2016 but Steve is optimistic it will get backing.
The Bill which has cross-party support from MPs whose constituencies have also been blighted by the problem, has another chance to see it passed in the House of Commons on November 25.As a fall-back position, Steve is also in talks with colleagues in the House of Lords to see if key parts of the Bill could be added to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill currently going through Parliament.
Steve first introduced his Bill in Parliament in November 2015 after he was inundated with planning complaints about rogue landlords and cowboy builders in recent years, an issue that has plagued Selly Oak and other areas across the country with large student populations. Frustrated by the lack of enforcement action to tackle breaches in planning law by the local Council Steve decided to take local residents’ planning plight to Parliament.
The Protection of Family Homes (Enforcement and Permitted Development) Private Members Bill will:
· Require the Department for Communities and Local Government to produce clearer guidance for Planning Authorities on when enforcement action should be taken and it will make it compulsory for local planning authorities to publish a detailed enforcement plan
· Introduce a right of appeal to an independent body when a planning authority decides not take enforcement action against a breach in planning law
· Set out the requirement for extensions built under permitted development to be independent checked against building regulations to ensure they are safe to live in
· Introduce new powers for planning authorities to fine developers who breach planning law as a deterrent when enforcement action is not considered ‘expedient’
· Levy fines to stop landlords like riding roughshod over the law and communities, the financial penalty will be applied to any developer who has misused permitted development or created a structure that adversely impacts the property or any property belonging to another person
Steve McCabe MP said:
“The Government could have shown more support for it before we ran out of time but it is not finished yet. We have another chance to conclude it later this month and are trying through the House of Lords.
“I am still optimistic that by hook or by crook this will go through.”
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