A resident has won a battle to prevent the house next door to him becoming an HMO after telling a planning panel he had suffered 'eight-and-a-half years of hell' from residents of one already in his street. Alan Phillips claimed he has already suffered verbal abuse from people smoking cannabis and making noise on his street.
Councillors on Salford’s planning and transportation regulatory panel rejected the bid to turn the two-bed home on Dronfield Road into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) for three people after hearing objections from Mr Phillips and Claremont ward councillor Michael Previtt. Mr Phillips told the panel about the horrific experience residents had endured from an existing HMO next to his home. If the application from Scarlett Womersley had been approved, Mr Phillips’ home would have been next to two HMOs.
“We have been kept awake from 12 midnight until 4am having to listen to the noise from the residents,” he said. “It’s not right that we should have yet another one next door. It’s not acceptable.
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“They don’t look after their property, they don’t keep it clean, they won’t talk to you. If you put more people in the other house next door there will be havoc.” He went on: “Claremont is a nice area to live in, but there are that many people renting there now, paying £400 to £500 to live in a box; it’s dragging the area down.
“People come here and look at the houses and say ‘how do you put up with all this noise’. We’ve had nights when they’ve been smoking cannabis and when you knock on the door, all you get is abuse.
"I think it’s a bit out of order. There’s partying, shouting and screaming, and you can hear it through the walls.
“We go to bed at night to get to sleep, not hear them causing chaos.” Coun Previtt, who is not on the panel but was addressing the meeting as ward councillor, said that the dimensions of the rooms did not meet Salford city council’s standards.
However, he was contradicted by planning officers sitting on the panel, who said the authority’s housing licensing team deemed it did meet the required standards.
“If you allow this application it will open the floodgates [to other similar applications],” said Coun Previtt.
Responding, Coun Mike McCusker said: “There a growing number of HMOs across the city, driven by government policy around housing benefit. I agree that there is an issue about the proximity of HMOs to neighbouring properties.”
A move to refuse the application by Coun Bob Clarke on the grounds of the proximity to neighbouring properties was won by four votes to two.
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