Spread of shared houses to be controlled

Manchester City Council is introducing a legal order to stop areas of the city being overrun by the spread of shared houses, following a change in the law.

The City Council is set to introduce an Article Four Direction, which will mean that developers will still have  to apply for planning permission if they want to turn buildings into  houses in multiple occupancy - houses where a number of unrelated people live together.

Under the Town And Country Planning  Order, which the government introduced on 1 October, developers no longer  need planning permission to turn homes into shared houses.

However, councils have the opportunity  to introduce directions, meaning they can effectively opt out of this  change in the law and insist developers still apply for planning  permission when creating shared houses.

The move is expected to have an impact  in areas like Fallowfield and Withington, where high concentrations of  houseshares can have a negative impact on the surrounding neighbourhood by  causing an increase in noise and disturbance.

High concentrations of houseshares can also cause the types of shops and services available in those areas to  change.

The direction, which will cover the  whole of the city of Manchester, will now come into effect in October 2011.

Councillor Nigel Murphy, Manchester  City Council's Executive Member for the Environment, said: "We know a lot  of residents are concerned about the spread of shared houses, particularly  in areas in the south of the city, and we are keen to do whatever we can  to manage this spread.

"The new law would have meant that any control over the spread of shared houses would have been taken away from  us.

"However, we need to be able to tackle  the problems caused by the uncontrolled growth of shared lets, making sure  communities retain the identity of their neighbourhoods, and that is why  we are now introducing this order."