Councillor Paul Walters has blamed hostile landlord policies on the town’s worsening homelessness problem, The Northern Echo reports.
Darlington is debating bringing in a selective licensing scheme to tackle homelessness, but Walters, a Conservative councillor for Hurworth, told a council meeting it would compound the problem.
He said: “All that’s going to happen if you bring in private landlord licensing is you charge £150-200 a property and that is going to be added straight onto tenants’ rent making their lives more difficult.
“The tenants will then leave and the bureaucracy is that bad the landlord will have to sell the property, like I’m doing right now, and they could come knocking on the council’s door looking for accommodation.
“That’s because the costs and bureaucracy are going up and landlords have had enough. They are selling in droves.”
Demand for emergency and temporary accommodation has risen significantly in the town, while the shortfall in housing benefit subsidy and rent allowance is expected to be £1.3m and £5.3m over the next four years.
Darlington’s Communities and Local Services Scrutiny Committee debated whether a selective licensing scheme be used to raise the funds needed for housing services, which would regulate landlords and housing agents.
Between April and June 2024 over 7,000 households in England were forced to rely on council support after their landlord sold their property.
