Landlords will no longer be able to convert properties into shared rental accommodation without planning permission, following new rules announced this week.

The changes, which will come into effect in April, mean that landlords who want to convert family homes into Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) will now have to apply for planning permission from their local authority. The moves come after a concerted lobbying campaign by residents’ groups nationwide, which included the Manchester-based Withington Civic Society which covers a part of the Burnage Ward.

Lib Dem MP, John Leech, who backed the residents’ groups in their campaign, commented:

“These changes will help residents’ groups to maintain a sense of community, which is sometimes lost with a spread of shared rental properties. They should also help to ensure that students don’t fall victim to rogue landlords, as there will be more checks and balances in place to make sure that work done to properties to convert them to student houses is of a suitable standard.”

Burnage Ward Councillor, and Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson, Cllr Iain Donaldson stated that “Two years ago John Leech MP and Roger Smith, Chair of the Withington Civic Society met the then-Housing Minister, Iain Wright, firstly in Westminster and then in Withington, to lobby for a legal requirement for planning permission to be sought for all conversions to Houses in Multiple Occupation.”

“The excellent campaigning by local residents to get these planning rules changed has received the full support of Liberal Democrat Councillors and John Leech MP. We are extremely pleased by today’s ruling. It’s now essential that Manchester City Council incorporates these changes into their Core Planning Strategy, which they are preparing at the moment.’

Breaking news that Manchester’s Labour Council is to reduce heating charges for thousands of tenants has been welcomed by Lib Dem Housing Spokesperson Iain Donaldson as clear proof that increases of over 70% over the past thee years have been totally excessive and for many residents unaffordable.

Last year Cllr Donaldson condemned Labour’s 31% fuel hike, proposing instead an increase of 10% and stating at the time that “Thousands of people in Manchester already live in fuel poverty. The poorest are already paying the highest proportion of their income in taxes. Now, this Labour Council is looking to add to their misery by landing them with an communal fuel increase nearly seven times the rate of inflation.”

Labour claim that this years decrease will cut fuel bills, but as Cllr Donaldson points out “Any reduction in prices is welcome, however they are merely reducing future bills to a level that means prices will still be up nearly 30% on what they were four years ago, more than double inflation over that period.”

Manchester City Council have unanimously adopted a joint notice of motion proposed by Cllr Iain Donaldson and seconded by Labour Councillor Tony Burns calling for improvements to the pay and conditions for our troops.

Addressing the Council Meeting on 27th January, Cllr Donaldson stated that “This City respects and honours the work done by our armed services.”

“Whereas the basic rate for a police officer is over £25,000 and for a firefighter is over £ 22,000, the basic pay for our service personnel is just over £ 16,000 increasing to just over £18,000 if they are on active service.”

“On behalf of the many service personnel from this City we are asking that the current review of Armed services pay ensures that our service men and women receive a package that is parallel to that of the emergency services.”

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The full notice of motion adopted reads:

Motion - Council’s on-going support to our military personnel

This Council’s support for our armed forces is well known, an example of which is the reception that we will shortly be holding in honour of service personnel in this city.

Council would support a review of armed forces pay and conditions, and considers that their package should be comparable to those of other emergency services.

 Nick Clegg was absolutely right to ask Gordon Brown how RBS (a 60% state owned bank which owes billions to the British Taxpayer) could find £12billion to lend to Kraft to takeover Cadbury’s and cut jobs, when RBS and other banks aren’t lending to viable British businesses to create jobs.

The following brands are now off my shopping list: Kenco, Tassimo, Maxwell House, Mellow Birds, Café Hag, Terrys, Toblerone, Cote d’or, Philadelphia, Dairylea, Vegemite (not that it would ever knowingly have been there), Jacobs, Gevalia, Mika, … Alpen, Capri Sun, Nabisco, Kraft and any others that I find are Kraft owned.

The concept that there is an infinite amount of money to be earned is nonsense, you either end uo with monopolies or credit crashes!

There are finite resources and it is the duty of each generation to pass to the next as great a share of those resources as is possible.

The executive met today to discuss implemenation of the new projects, the ideas for which were developed at the recent away day.  More news to follow.

The development of the community project continues apace.  At todays management committee we covered the re-structure of the building and the educational offer that is planned for the new Community House on Westcroft Road.

I visited the Good Neighbours christmas meal today, along with John Cameron and John Leech, and excellent it was.   This community organisation does a fantastic job in our local area.

John Cameron and I met today with the people organising the cross city bus route to raise our concerns about the potential impact of closing Oxford Road to all but busses, taxis and cycles on the Burnage area.

We have asked that the impact on the 50 be carefully measured, that bus and cycle lanes be considered for Kingsway and that a safe alternative route be designated and signposted for cyclists rather than having to negotiate the roundabouts at the north end of Kingsway.

It is high time that supermarkets receiving alcohol licenses were required to treat their alcohol sales as a distinct cost centre, in order to stop them from using cheap beer and wine as a loss leader to attract people through their doors.

I have today called on the City Council to review its alochol licenses to see if this can be achieved under current legislation, or if we need to press for government legislate to make this possible.