Appendix 1 - Objection Letter Ms Roe
Perth and Kinross Council · 27 August 2024
Back to Licensing Committee — 27 August 2024 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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To: Perth and Kinross Planning Dept. Re: Renewal of House of Multiple Occupation Licence at 91 Glasgow Road, Perth, PH20PQ. Name of Organisation, Committee or Individual, Taigh Baile Ltd., . Name of person responsible for application: In the summer of 2018, knocked on my door to inform m that he had bought the houses opposite mine, intending to use it as a House of Multiple Occupation because his son, who had recently left School, needed a place to live. He explained that the boy and his mother did not get on well, and if he were to live in the family home in , it would cause a great deal of friction so he sought a place, in a good district for his son to live in. Hence the house in Glasgow Rd. I had never heard of HMOs but when I researched them, I was very concerned about the kind of person who would live opposite me. My information was that the house, which had previously been used as a B & B – and it was very attractive at that time – would easily convert to a HMO but that the occupants had locks on their doors to give them privacy. I wondered at the time whether a similar property might not be available in and, in a lengthy and increasingly bitter correspondence with , he claimed that he had chosen Glasgow Road, Perth, because of its proximity to . He stated that he would have nothing to do with the running of the HMO because he had handed over management of it to , who manage properties over Perth and Kinross, Dundee and Angus. I discovered that had placed advertisements online oering accommodation to rent for vulnerable young people. I had heard anecdotal accounts of the problems neighbours of had experienced with occupants of having issues with drug addiction with all of its attendant problems and faced with them, and informed him that should this kind of problem arise with the people he was renting his property to, I should object to it in the strongest possible terms. I should also say that I discovered the initial notice that the property was to be used as a HMO accidentally because it had not been displayed facing Glasgow Road but on a side wall facing the front of the house. I asked neighbours on my side of the road and opposite if they had seen the notice. They had not. In fact, one neighbour was a who walked past the property twice a day on his way to and from the hospital and he had not seen the notice. By the time we had all
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been acquainted with intentions, it was too late to place objections. I contacted the Social Work Dept. to tell them of our concerns but their response to our statements that despite Statutory Obligations, the Notice had not been clearly displayed so broke the law, was equivocal. We could do nothing and were extremely angry and frustrated. I must say that the HMO seems to manage the occupants well. I see their vehicles coming and going. One of the things I had insisted that oversaw was that the occupants had 24 hour, 7 days a week, including public holidays like Christmas Day and New Year supervision, to avoid possible problems. I think this has been organised. At the time of the initial application, my neighbours in numbers were elderly and vulnerable. The occupants of No 91 could see directly into my house, so I erected a fence to allow me a little privacy. Of course, since 2018, Covid restrictions made it diicult for us to see whether second application was displayed but I did see his third application which I am commenting on now. The house at 91, which when it was a B & B, fitted very well into the locality. It was well maintained, had lovely plans surrounding its parking area at the front and it was obviously lived in and cared for. Now, the house looks drab and uncared for. It is a locked-up and bare house which, apart from its neighbour at No. , is an unattractive addition to the houses in Glasgow Road. Properties in Glasgow Rd., Perth, are e-banded and part of the decision to apply this banding is the ambiance, the look of the properties which are residential, not institutional. 91 Glasgow Rd. falls short of this requirement. If this were not enough, The Lovat Hotel, a few doors up from us at has been used, or is still being used, to accommodate asylum seekers. Although it seems to b owned by Camlin (Lovat) Ltd., , it is being run, ostensibly, as a hotel, garishly painted and does not fit well into the residential area in which it is situated. Not only that, the people managing the hotel overfill their bins which sit at the edge of our access lane, Strathearn Tce. This is an ugly entrance to the lane and we know that this careless way of disposing of household rubbish has attracted rats. This combination of an unsightly HMO and a garish and poorly run hotel accommodating asylum seekers, is not in keeping with our residential area. It is the kind of thing which leads to the downgrading of an area. Both establishment are within a hundred yards or so of each other do our part of Glasgow Road, still at the moment a highly desirable area to live in, looks as if it is in decline. Our little area is being overload with problem occupants.
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We cannot do much about the Lovat Hotel, like so many in Perth, being used to accommodate asylum seekers but we should be able to challenge use of his premises as an HMO. Taigh Baile Ltd., is a property agency, a private limited company, (SC582425) which operates in the real estate sector, focussing on letting and operating own leased properties, (68209). It is marketed as such through Bringo.co.uk and I suggest that it could easily advertise the property on dierent letting arrangements, say revert it to a B & B. claims that he has bought the property for the benefit of his son and to pay the mortgage he must let out the other rooms in the property seems unlikely, because there must be suitable accommodation for his son in . For these reasons I oppose application to renew his license to use the house at 91 Glasgow Road, Perth, PH20PQ as a House of Multiple Occupation. Lovina Roe, 70 Glasgow Rd., Perth, PH20PG.