Furious families being ‘forced out’ of homes in famous UK city to make way for students

Families who have lived in the same area for generations are being ‘pushed out’ as landlords buy up terraced houses and convert them into homes of multiple occupation (HMOs) for students and tenants. The Holt Road Residents Association, based in Kensington, say this has created a transient community with no vested interest in maintaining the area.

In June 2021, Liverpool City Council introduced an Article 4 direction, making such conversions more difficult. This means planning permission is now required to convert a property into a HMO for three or more people in certain parts of the city.

Another change under the council’s local plan can refuse planning permission where there is a concentration of more than 10% of HMOs in a particular area. While these measures were welcomed in areas like Kensington, many feel the damage has already been done.

There are also fears that landlords are finding new ways to circumvent regulations and are converting properties without obtaining planning permission.

The Liverpool Echo recently met with members of the Holt Road Resident Association, established in 2018 with a mission to improve life in Kensington for all its residents and workers.

“If I was younger I would sell my house and go. I’m 80 now – where am I going to go? ” lamented one local resident.

Agnes Dickinson, who has seen Kensington change since 1947, reminisced: “It was an affluent area around here, it was a community. You knew all of your neighbours.”

However, Agnes, now 77, observed a stark difference today: “There’s 36 houses in our street and you’ve got five family homes”, pointing out the majority have been turned into HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation). Anne Hammel, like Agnes, has spent her entire life in the area.

Anne looked back on the days when Kensington was a sought-after location: “Everybody wanted to live around here for the simple reason that we had many, many factories on Edge Lane. People bought the houses or rented the houses so they could work in the factories.”

She detailed the decline: “Gradually the factories started to close and people moved out then. Housing associations moved in and started buying houses.”

Anne continued, highlighting issues with property ownership: “You got the landlords then who wanted to turn them into HMOs. We’ve got a lot of absentee landlords. For some houses they can’t trace the landlords and they just sit empty.”

Reflecting on her current situation, she added: “If I was younger I would sell my house and go. I’m 80 now – where am I going to go? How am I going to get a mortgage?”

Concluding with a poignant statement, she declared: “We don’t have to live like this”.

The ECHO has consistently highlighted the challenges HMOs pose in locales such as Kensington, with issues ranging from litter and fly-tipping to parking woes and anti-social antics. Local resident Dave Rimmer, aged 63, vented to the ECHO: “We started this [residents association] in 2018, we said ‘we don’t have to live like this.’

“We had a meeting with the council and what they promised was great. They redid the alleyways, they took the rubbish out, they reflagged it all. The alleyways are brilliant.

“Then they said they would give us these Euro bins on a temporary basis and after that we will get underground bins. The Euro bins will be cleaned regularly, disinfected, the streets will be cleaned and rat free.

“It was rat free for a few months – there were no rats around. Everyone was pleased, they were cleaning the streets. The street sweepers were around all the time. Then the last two or three years it’s declined again.”

In an effort to tackle the squalor and rodent problems plaguing alleyways, communal bins, known as Euro bins, were rolled out in areas like Kensington in 2020 as part of Liverpool City Council’s ambitious £6m alleyway regeneration scheme. This initiative aimed to replace wheelie bins in certain terraced streets across the city with larger container bins to clean up filthy, vermin-ridden back alleys and boost recycling rates.

Dave lamented the misuse of Euro bins, stating: “People were using the bins properly but now they’re leaving bags of food by the bin rather than putting it in them.”

He also noted that while the bins are emptied regularly, they are not cleaned, which attracts vermin.

Recent images from Kensington reveal streets cluttered with rubbish and communal bins burnt out, surrounded by fly-tipped items. Anne-Marie Savage, 54, expressed her dismay: “We get people driving into the area fly-tipping in the area and driving away – that’s how bad it’s got.”

The Holt Road Residents Association has voiced concerns that street cleaning efforts are inadequate for the volume of waste being discarded. Liverpool City Council leader Liam Robinson sympathised with residents: “I can completely understand the frustration of the residents, they’re a really great, tight knit community.”

Robinson has made it clear to the council’s planning department that enforcement against HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) is now a top priority. He condemned the landlords’ greed, saying: “I’ve been very clear with the council’s planning department since I have become leader that enforcement against HMOs is the priority of planning enforcement now.”

He further criticised some landlords’ disregard for property quality and tenant welfare, focusing solely on profit: “Cllr Robinson spoke of ‘the greed of a number of landlords’ who are ‘not bothered about the quality of the property, they’re not bothered about how they look after the tenants or the residents, all they’re bothered about is making huge amounts of money out of what were traditionally three-four bedroom terrace houses.'”

Noting the ongoing struggle, he said: “We’ve got to keep fighting back but we’ve also got to look at what are the additional powers we want to ask for [from the government] to be able to keep fighting back.”

Revolutionising waste management with underground super-bins.

Asserting his ambitions for cleanliness across the metropolitan area, Cllr Robinson stated a desire for an “improvment right across the city”. He indicated this improvement would include an upgrade to the cleaning of Euro bins.

Expected in the upcoming months, funds have been earmarked from this year’s city council budget for the task.

Regarding the efficacy of the Euro bins, Cllr Robinson stated: “I think it’s fair to say certainly when the Euro bins first came in they were a big improvement on what I used to call the rat banquet of rat collections that were in the alleyways. The alleyways are certainly much clearer than they used to be and we have noticed the reports of vermin are reduced from what they were a few years ago – that doesn’t mean there is not still a rat issue in the area.

“We’ve been just as concerned as residents have about the need to have the right focus on the Euro bins.”

Addressing littering concerns, the city council revealed plans for installing more CCTV cameras at prime fly-tipping areas. Marking advancements for the community, 2022 saw the installation of the council’s first ever underground super-bins across twelve locations in the city, including two streets in Kensington.

The £1.5m initiative was designed to clean up communities and address the issues of dumping and vermin in hundreds of inner-city streets, which lack the space for wheelie bins. However, the Holt Road Residents Association has claimed that many streets in Kensington, promised underground bins as part of the roll out, are still waiting.

Cllr Robinson, when asked for an update on the roll out this week, stated that a review will be conducted in the upcoming months to assess how Euro bins and underground bins have performed across the city and what lies ahead.

He further noted that while underground bins have largely been successful, they do pose some logistical challenges regarding their installation due to factors such as sewers and gas pipes that sit below street level.