Council Services

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Housing- Private Sector

Environmental Health is responsible for dealing with private housing within the Borough.

This can include giving grant/loan assistance to eligible owners to help them with the cost of essential work and also taking enforcement action in the case of privately rented properties.

We also operate in conjunction with the Home Improvement Agency, Anchor. We deal with all housing tenures except properties in Council ownership. The services we provide include:

Providing grants/loans for the repair and renovation of owner/occupied houses.
Providing grants for adaptations in houses where the occupant is disabled.
Requiring landlords to undertake essential repairs and maintenance of their properties.
Ensuring that houses in multiple occupation, (where several households live), have sufficient facilities for washing and cooking and have adequate fire protection.
Preventing overcrowding.
Giving advice and grant assistance for improvements in Energy efficiency.
Bringing long-term empty homes back into use.
Resolving nuisance issues associated with houses such as rubbish, dirty premises, vermin and disconnection of services.

Melton Borough Council Private Sector Housing Policy

The current Melton Borough Council Private Sector housing policy can be viewed here.

Rented Properties

When our Private Housing Officers deals with privately rented properties they check that the landlord complies with their responsibilities under Gas Safety legislation.The legislation is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and requires, amongst other matters, that all gas appliances are checked annually by a Gas Safe registered engineer and a copy of the certificate provided to the tenant. You can find a suitably qualified engineer on the Gas Safe website.

Compulsory/ Voluntary Acquisition

This is when the government, local council or utility company has the legal right to buy or take rights over your private property if it falls within a public or private construction project such as airport expansions housing developments electricity pylons and cables flood defence works sewer, water or gas pipe schemes, rail or road building projects.

Different compulsory purchase or statutory powers are needed to implement the above schemes. For example, water pipes are laid under statutory rights under the Water Industry Act 1991 and a road bypass will have its own compulsory purchase order through the Acquisition of Land Act 1981.In all cases, the owners and occupiers of the properties to be acquired or affected by the scheme will be served Notices, with differing expiry times. All the schemes provide compensation to owners and occupiers directly affected by the scheme.

Voluntary Acquisition

Voluntary acquisition scheme normally operate in conjunction with a registered social landlord. A property may be voluntarily acquired from a private owner, for renovation and letting through a registered social landlord. The council can make compulsory purchase orders or Empty Dwelling Management Orders on properties that have been left empty for more than 6 months with no reasonable cause.