There’s good news for local residents as a new accreditation scheme for rented properties comes a step closer.

As reported by the Guildford Dragon, an outline proposal for the scheme to raise housing standards and improve property management was agreed at Guildford Borough’s Council’s latest Executive meeting.

Actions to improve areas of concern will be taken in the meantime – covering waste recycling, maintenance of gardens and parking.

This is largely thanks to Cllr Caroline Reeves who’s the leader of the Lib Dem group on the council.  As Chair of the Task and Finish group, Caroline led the investigation that produced the proposal for the new scheme.

As I know full well, it’s impossible to speak to local residents without realising the on-going problems relating to houses of multiple occupancy in many parts of the town.

But an accreditation scheme will fix this problem in the long term by making landlords and letting agents take better care of their properties and take more responsibility for their tenants. At the same time it’s likely to improve community relations between tenants and neighbours by ending the kind of problems which cause conflicts.

Once the scheme is implemented then, the more landlords that sign up to it, the more tenants who will be living in better quality accommodation and the fewer neighbours who’ll have to deal with the impact of houses which aren’t properly maintained where rubbish is left on the streets or in gardens.

All in all it’s a great step forward and I’m proud of the part of Liberal Democrats in pressuring the council to make it happen.