Conferences
Wandsworth 2009
Wandsworth Council hosted our autumn conference at Wandsworth Civic Suite on Thursday 12th November.
Councillor Martin Johnson, Cabinet Member for Housing at Wandsworth Council, welcomed around 150 delegates and gave an overview of the private rented sector in the borough.
Wandsworth has the largest population of the inner London boroughs which is estimated to grow by a further 9% over the next 15 years. 48% of the population is aged between 20 and 39: the “young professionals”. About 22% of households live in the private rented sector and there is a significant student population.
Whilst there has been recent high rise development along the Thames riverside there are also a large number of 19th and early 20th century terraces. Of an estimated 300 HMOs, 220 have been licensed and 92% of these have been inspected. There have been some prosecutions, but there is also education and training for landlords via a local landlords’ forum and support of the London Landlords Accreditation Scheme.
Local Conservative MP, Justine Greening, Shadow Minister for London and a member of the Shadow Communities and Local Government front bench team delivered the keynote speech.
She talked about the Conservatives’ “vision for housing” and what they might implement should they form a government at the next election. Her key points were that “top down driven Westminster targets …. are not effective”. She said that there had been significant legislative changes in the private rented sector in recent years and that the Conservatives wanted “smart legislation not blanket legislation and smart powers not ones which hinder private landlords”.
You can read more of her speech here.
Judith Dunn, a Director of the Scottish Association of Landlords, talked about the private rented sector in Scotland and reminded delegates of the differences in legislation and controls on the sector north of the border where there is a different HMO definition, mandatory licensing is different, where there is already compulsory landlord registration and where a tenancy deposit scheme is yet to be introduced.
You can read more of Judith’s speech here and see her presentation here.
Simon McNeill-Ritchie of the Wandsworth Historical Society gave an illustrated wander through Wandsworth’s history: around 3,000 years in 15 minutes!
You can read more of Simon's speech here.
Delegates were able to attend a choice of workshops throughout the day.
Thanks go to all who took part in the conference and especially to the staff at Wandsworth Council for their work in organising a very successful day.