Tabled Question in the Name of Cllr A Clarke

"To ask the number, capacity and location of all HMOs in the Borough, and details of any enforcement taken in each of the past 5 years".

“By way of background, it should be noted that if an owner plans to rent a property as an HMO, the property must have an HMO licensed in place in accordance with the Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 (“2016 Act”).

HMOs are required to meet higher physical and management standards that the wider private rented sector before a licence is granted.

All HMO licences are granted with standard licensing conditions, the council may also include additional conditions it considers appropriate for regulating the management, use and occupation of an HMO.

The granting, refusal, variation or revocation of an HMO licence in the borough rests with Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.

However, Belfast City Council’s NIHMO Unit, on behalf of each of the local councils across Northern Ireland is responsible for managing the HMO Licensing Scheme application process, which will include processing all licence requests, validating the requests, checks and inspections of HMO properties, issuing enforcement notices for unlicensed HMOs or breaching licensing conditions.

A property is defined as an HMO if: 

• three or more people live there (not related), and 
• they form at least three households, and 
• at least one person pays rent or other consideration is made (e.g. the property is provided as part of the occupant’s terms of employment).

The owner of an HMO and the managing agent (if any) commit criminal offences if they allow accommodation to be occupied as an HMO without a licence being in place.

Additionally, the HMO Act creates the criminal offence of allowing an HMO to be occupied in excess of the number of persons authorised on the licence.

Furthermore, an owner, agent or other person named in the licence commits an offence if they breach a condition included in a licence.

The 2016 Act also allows the council to serve notices to bring the property up to the required standard and to maintain the property at that standard during the duration of the licence.

In relation to this specific query,

There are 11 HMOs registered in the MEA area (two in Carrick & nine in Ballymena) with occupancy numbers varying between 3 to 9 with one multiple address property having 20 occupants.

Over the past 5 years, enforcement action taken has included 61 investigations and 12 Statutory notices served as follows:-

 Kevin Bloomfield, Manager HMO unit is happy to attend a Council meeting to explain the statistics and work of the unit, if this would be considered helpful.

"Which MUGA pitches within Braid constituency are locked over the weekend when not in use? i.e. ones which have not been booked by groups. 

If such MUGA pitches are locked when not in use, could this be reviewed to allow for youths to use them on a casual basis?"

“There are currently 5 bookable MUGAs in the Ballymena area, Ahoghill, Broughshane, Kells, Clough and Wakehurst MUGAs.

They are blocked booked by clubs and casual users throughout the football season, Monday through Saturday, mainly from 6pm to 10pm Monday through Friday and morning times on Saturdays.

During all School holidays the MUGAs are opened by council staff to service the need for children in the community from 9am to 4pm for free use on all 5 sites. 

To open MUGAs for free use over weekends will require council staff to open and close at a cost.

In the event a community rep is appointed to each site they will need to ensure the opening and locking of the sites and be on site to move users off in the event a booking comes in.

In general, they are bookable sites and can be purchased for a group of users at £9.50 and £18.95 Junior rates.

Council officers would not be in favour of allowing youths to use the MUGAs on a casual basis without a booking, given the additional resources required for same.”

"There was an agreement at the full council meeting on 17 February to hold a workshop for elected members on the plans for council transformation.

"Could we please get an update on when this workshop will be held?"

“Following agreement at Personnel Committee on 14 January and ratification on 17 February, work to procure external support for the recruitment of new permanent directors for the Council has been progressed as part of the initial stages of taking forward the wider Transformation Programme for the Council. 

The Interim Chief Executive has set up a number of meetings with the individual political groups of Council to brief Members on progress.”

“At the Council meeting on 17 February, during the discussion about the Armed Forces Covenant, the minutes note the following:

Cllr Barr, in supporting the renewal, requested that Council consideration be given to joining the Blue Light Card scheme for veterans and that it pledged to support ‘hard to reach’ veterans.

The Blue Light Card is a discount service for the emergency services, NHS, social care sector, teaching communities and armed forces.

The full eligibility list is set out below:

4x4 Response; Ambulance Service including retired; Blood Bikes; British Army; Cave Rescue; Community First Responders; Dental Practice; Fire Service including re-tired; Highways England Traffic Officer; Home Office; HM Armed Forces Veterans; HM Coastguard; HM Prison & Probation Services; Lowland Search and Rescue; MoD Civil Servants; MoD Fire Service; MoD Police; Mountain Rescue; NHS including retired & volunteers; Optometrists; Police including retired; Red Cross; Reserve Armed Forces; RNLI; Royal Air Force; Royal Marines; Royal Navy; Search and Res-cue; Social Care Workers; and Teachers.

Members would need to consider the affordability and costing of providing such a wide discount.

Following the Council meeting, contact was made with leisure to explore whether veterans could be included in any concession scheme.

This has led to the discovery of a corporate pricing policy which dates from 2016.

This policy would need to be re-viewed and updated.

The policy would also need to go through the Council’s screening processes.

Officers are currently looking at this and will bring a report back to CRPG by way of update.”