Social Value Ideas for Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council

Rising HMO complaints and penalties

The report highlighted significant pressure on housing enforcement caused by a large rise in HMO-related complaints, civil penalties and prohibition orders. These issues were used to justify tighter r…

“Over the past three years, the council has received eighteen eighty five complaints about disrepair in rented homes with three ninety seven of those c…”

Borough-wide HMO licensing approved

Cabinet agreed to introduce a borough-wide additional licensing scheme for HMOs covering three and four person HMOs and Section 257 HMOs. The scheme is retrospective, requires public publicity and enf…

“Item six on the agenda, implementation of borough wide additional licensing scheme for houses in multiple occupation. This report will be introduced b…”

New HMO room-size standards

The licensing scheme will impose stricter minimum room-size standards, increasing the minimum bedroom size from 6.5m2 to 7.5m2. Existing licensed properties already contain a number of undersized room…

“Among requirements that properties will be required to meet in order to obtain a license are minimum room sizes. For example, the current minimum bedr…”

Refuse overbearing replacement home

The committee refused a proposed replacement dwelling at 73 Kermoor Avenue after officers and members concluded it remained too large, overbearing and harmful to the street scene and to the neighbouri…

“Officers are of the view that the current proposal is not sufficiently different to the refuse schemes to overcome these reasons for refusal. Referrin…”

Refuse Green Belt expansion

The committee refused a major extension proposal at Braemar, Salford Road because officers judged the combined extension and roof alterations to be a disproportionate increase in size and harmful to G…

“And in terms of the character and appearance of the proxy, this is drastically changed as you'll be able to see from the existing proposed elevations.…”

Home salon approved in residential area

Members approved a planning application to convert an outbuilding at 71 Highgate Meadow into a home hairdressing salon, with an additional front parking space and retention of a rear/side fence. Offic…

“Speaker 4: Thank you, Chair. Next slide please. So, the proposal, as members were aware after reading the report, is for the rescension of existing ou…”

Complaints process reset

Officers described a new corporate complaints team, a three-stage complaints process, and a cultural shift toward learning from complaints rather than just responding to them. Members asked for the po…

“So, the complaints function is the stage two complaints, you will see in the performance status it says to be determined. The reason for that is that …”

Circulate complaints policy

The officer agreed to circulate the complaints policy/procedure and website link to all members the next day, following requests for clarity on complaint handling stages and escalation. This is a dire…

“Thanks, Chair. Just following up from that. I used to deal with I was a manager dealing with complaints for a PFI scheme in Salford And the radical ch…”