TOILETS installed inside showers, windows opening on to breeze blocks, giant holes in the floor: these are some the issues a council's new housing plans are trying to get rid of.
On Monday, Oxford City Council announced a series of measures to crack down on rogue landlords, make private rented housing more energy efficient, and to create a database of all the rentals in the city.
A toilet and sink inside a shower, discovered at a privately rented home in Oxford. Picture: Oxford City Council
As it made the announcement, the council shared photos of the worse excesses of poor rented housing in the city, and claimed there was an ‘emerging trend’ of rogue landlords.
Pictured here are some more of the horrors which city council staff have discovered on inspection visits to rented accommodation in the city.
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The photos released by the council include smashed windows on extensions of homes, beds placed in sheds, and run down properties with dirty radiators, cracked bathroom tiles and ripped-up floor lino.
The plans launched on Monday could see every landlord of a privately rented home in the city having to register for a licence.
Deputy leader of the council Linda Smith said the new proposals would provide a 'level playing field' for all landlords across the city.
The council currently requires landlords of houses of multiple occupation to have a licence.
These are properties which have three or more unrelated people living together and are also known as HMOs.
The new plans would extend this licensing scheme to include everything from bedsits above shops, to rented family homes, to blocks of privately rented flats.
The council has also outlined plans paid for by £71,000 of government funding from the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop a computer algorithm which can identify homes in Oxford which may be privately rented.
The new licensing scheme and the algorithm would be used to create a complete map of all of Oxford's private rented homes.
Also funded by the government would be a lawyer who can help the council toughen up their processes for taking on rogue landlords.
The council is also proposing to tighten up energy efficiency in homes across the city by making sure all privately rented homes have an energy performance certificate.
Last summer, the council also started to get tough on so-called 'beds in sheds'.
These are rented living spaces hidden in back garden sheds or other outbuildings.
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A plane flying over the streets of Oxford was used to catch dozens of rogue landlords keeping tenants in 'appalling' conditions in garden sheds.
The aircraft used a thermal imaging camera to spot the illegal structures where often vulnerable people are charged to live in cramped squalor.
The council's new plans to extend its licensing scheme need to be approved by the government, so the authority is currently building a case for this.
Three London boroughs have already done this successfully.
The council plans to ask Oxford residents their opinions on the plans, with a consultation planned later this year.
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