For a number of issues facing Bath residents, we are have
reached the point where they can no longer be addressed entirely by local
agencies and need action at national level.
Pavement Parking
Pavement parking is
a big problem in the city centre causing considerable concern to people with
mobility issues and causing considerable damage to paving stone which is
unsightly, dangerous and expensive to put right and we need:
·
Legislation on pavement parking
Licensing
Licenced premises
and their effective management are an important issue in Bath City centre, and
indeed most urban centres in BANES. There are many problems with the current Licensing
Acts which we outlined in our submission to the house of Lords Review and we
need:
·
A review of the licencing law following up on
the review by the House of Lords and in particular removing the artificial
barriers between licensing and planning
Short term letting
Short term holiday and party lets can course major problems
for neighbouring residents, are not subject to the same regulation or taxation
regimes of other more conventional providers of holiday accommodation such as
hotels and B&Bs.
Internet companies such as Air B&B are considerably
increasing this type of letting and whole neighbourhood are being blighted by
the worse tenants and most irresponsible landlords.
Local authorities are struggling to find legislation
which allows them to manage this growing problem London Authorities have fallen
back on some legislation from the 1970s which only applies within the
boundaries of Greater London. However, even this rather inadequate legal
provision was considerably weakened by the deregulation laws passed in
2015.
Outside London local government is struggling with case
law which can only be applied in very limited circumstances.
We need legislation which unambiguously gives
planning authorities powers to reclassify premises use for holiday letting as
business use.
We need to give Local Authorities the option to bring short term letting within the sort of licensing regime which is available for HMOs
Housing Associations
Bath is unique in the number of people who choose to live in
the city centre and in the social and economic diversity of those who live
there.
This latter appears to be being changed by those entrusted
with creating and managing social housing and other low-cost accommodation. We
are increasingly seeing these organisation appearing to pursue policies which
are displacing social housing tenants from the city centre and developing the
resulting vacant properties for commercial gain by selling them, renting
them out at commercial rents or even turning them into holiday accommodation.
These policies too often appear to be causing distress to
tenants, threatening the nature of the city centre and displacing key city
centre workers and turning them into commuters thus adding to their living
costs and increasing the pressures on the city's fragile transport network.
·
We need changes to the regulatory framework to
make Housing Associations as responsible for their social impact as they are
for their financial management. They need to be made more accountable to local
communities for what they do.
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