Licensed HMOs rose from 28 to 143 in eight years. Cabinet decides on 15 September whether to make landlords apply for planning permission borough-wide.

Turning a Stockport house into a small shared home currently needs no planning permission at all. The council wants that to stop, and it wants it to stop the day the decision is made.

A report published this week asks Cabinet, on 15 September, to make an immediate borough-wide Article 4 Direction removing permitted development rights for changes of use from a family house to a small house in multiple occupation (Stockport Council). If it is made, a landlord converting a house for three to six sharers would have to apply for planning permission first.

The council is careful about what this is not. The direction “would not prevent this conversion”, the report says. It would not ban small HMOs, and it would not affect existing ones. It changes who gets to look at the plan before it happens.

The number behind it

Licensed HMOs in Stockport have gone up every year for eight years.

Licensed houses in multiple occupation in Stockport, 2017 to 2025 Bar chart of licensed HMOs in Stockport by year: 28 in 2017, 48 in 2018, 66 in 2019, 73 in 2020, 92 in 2021, 103 in 2022, 119 in 2023, 129 in 2024 and 143 in 2025. Licensed HMOs in Stockport have risen every year since 2017 Number of licensed houses in multiple occupation in the borough, 2017 to 2025 0 50 100 150 28 48 66 73 92 103 119 129 143 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Source: Stockport Council, Appendix 1 to "Introduction of an Article 4 Direction Relating to Small Houses in Multiple Occupation", Figure 5 Graphic by Stockport Today
Licensed HMOs are the ones the council knows about. Small HMOs below the licensing threshold are counted separately, and estimated.

The report calls that “over a fivefold increase” in a decade, and says the trend “does not appear to be slowing”.

There is a second reason it is happening now. Every other Greater Manchester authority already has an HMO Article 4 Direction in place, or in Rochdale’s case has one due to come into effect shortly. That would leave Stockport as the only one in the conurbation without one, and the report argues it would therefore become the obvious place for landlords to look.

Which parts of Stockport this is really about

The council’s own figures put the concentrations firmly in a handful of wards. The table below is the council’s ward data, published as Appendix 1 to the report. “Reactive enquiries” are complaints and queries the council received about HMOs.

Ward Licensed HMOs Small HMOs Reactive enquiries Total
Davenport & Cale Green 35 33 6 74
Brinnington & Stockport Central 18 24 2 44
Edgeley 18 12 5 35
Manor 12 21 1 34
Offerton 13 19 2 34
Reddish North 16 8 4 28
Reddish South 11 14 3 28
Heald Green 5 13 3 21
Bredbury & Woodley 4 11 1 16
Heatons North 3 10 3 16
Hazel Grove 5 8 2 15
Cheadle East & Cheadle Hulme North 2 7 4 13
Cheadle West & Gatley 2 5 3 10
Cheadle Hulme South 3 5 1 9
Bredbury Green & Romiley 1 7 0 8
Norbury & Woodsmoor 2 5 1 8
Heatons South 3 2 1 6
Marple South & High Lane 0 4 1 5
Marple North 0 3 1 4
Bramhall North 0 1 1 2
Bramhall South & Woodford 0 1 1 2

So why cover the whole borough rather than the two or three wards with the problem? Because, the report argues, a ward-level direction would simply move the pressure. If it applied only to Davenport & Cale Green and Edgeley, then “properties elsewhere in the borough would become more attractive, with properties at the lower end of value most likely to be targeted”.

For scale against the neighbours, the 2021 census put estimated HMOs at 0.11% of Stockport households. Manchester was 2.57% and Salford 1.23%. Trafford was 0.20%, Bury 0.11%, Bolton 0.10%, Oldham 0.09%, Tameside 0.08%, Wigan 0.07% and Rochdale 0.04%.

What “immediate” means, and why it carries a bill

There are two kinds of Article 4 Direction. One takes effect after a notice period. The other, under Schedule 3 paragraph 2(1) of the General Permitted Development Order 2015, takes effect at once and without prior notice. A council can only use the immediate version where it considers the development would be prejudicial to proper planning or a threat to local amenity.

Officers say that test is met, pointing to the increase in small conversions, including of terraced houses, going ahead without the council being able to look at parking, bin storage or the standard of the accommodation.

Choosing immediate effect has a cost attached. Where a direction comes into force less than 12 months after it is made, a compensation liability can arise. The report sets out the limits:

  • a claim can only be made if planning permission is later refused, or granted with conditions beyond the standard ones
  • it is limited to the difference between the land’s value with and without the development, plus the cost of preparing architectural plans
  • nothing is payable on a claim made more than 12 months after the direction takes effect

The report says the scale of any liability “cannot currently be quantified” and that claims in the first year will be monitored. There is no right of appeal against an Article 4 Direction. It can only be challenged by judicial review, and the Secretary of State can modify or cancel it.

What happens after 15 September

If Cabinet approves it, officers draft the direction and make it. The council then has to:

  • publish a notice in a local newspaper
  • display at least two site notices for no fewer than 21 days
  • notify the Secretary of State on the same day the notice is published
  • write to landlords and managing agents on the licensing team’s mailing list, and to people registered on the council’s development plan consultation database

The report accepts that serving notice on every owner and occupier in the borough would be impracticable, which is why it proposes the mailing lists instead. Area committees would also be told.

A further report then comes back recommending whether to confirm the direction, taking account of any representations made. Until the emerging Local Plan brings in a dedicated HMO policy, applications would be decided against saved policy CDH1.4 of the Unitary Development Plan, the adopted Core Strategy and the National Planning Policy Framework.

What it means for you

  • If you rent a room in a shared house, nothing changes. The direction is about future conversions, not existing HMOs, and it does not affect your tenancy.
  • If you are a landlord planning a conversion, the window is the point. An immediate direction takes effect without notice, so there is no grace period to complete a conversion before the rules change.
  • If you live next door to one, you get a say for the first time. Once permission is required, applications are publicised and neighbours can comment on parking, bin storage and concentration.
  • A small HMO is three to six unrelated people sharing. Seven or more already needs planning permission as a sui generis use, and those applications are often decided by area committees.
  • The dates. The Housing, Economy & Environment Scrutiny Committee discusses it at 6pm on Thursday 3 September in Committee Room 2 at the Town Hall, and the meeting is webcast. Cabinet decides on Tuesday 15 September.

Council decisions that change what can be built are tracked on our Stockport planning news page. If you are checking what a property costs to run in a given ward, our council tax bands page and bin collection days page cover the basics.

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