Enfield Council is proposing to start the licensing of private landlords within the borough and charge 5-yearly licensing fees of £575.oo per privately rented home in Enfield under the flawed premise that privately rented homes are the key drivers of anti-social behaviour in the borough.
There is no robust evidence for this. They did not conclusively show why the spate of licensing of new betting shops or the late opening hours of pubs/nightclubs in the borough does not confound their assertion.
Further Enfield Council has not separated the effect of the frustration of the residents of the many poorly maintained Council housing estates or houses and how this impacts on social cohesion. They have made no allowance for how missed bin collections impact on people despite this being reported almost weekly in the local newspapers.
There are many youth gangs in the borough of Enfield and this has worsened in the last 10 years. Many sociologists believe that the rise in the number of youth gangs is directly linked to the cut back in community services and lack of robust social infrastructure to support families that are troubled.
But Enfield Council would have us believe that private landlord are the cause and that they should pay 5-yearly fees of £575.oo to the Council for this. Their proposal to license privately rented accommodation at 5-yearly fees of £575.oo is nothing but a cynical ploy to bleed hard-working families for more money.
It does not address the root cause of anti-social behaviour within the community.
It adds an extra layer of bureaucracy and costs to private landlord who are providing a service that the Council will otherwise not be able to. These additional costs will in the end be passed on to tenants, making homes in Enfield least affordable to the most vulnerable people in the society.
This is a call to arms for all the people of the Borough of
Enfield to sign this ePetition and resist.
This Petition ran from 06/02/2014 to 08/04/2014 and has now finished.
1862 people signed this Petition.