Medway Council’s Cabinet on Tuesday evening confirmed Article 4 Directions removing automatic conversion rights for small Houses of Multiple Occupation across seven wards. Done deal. The six-week consultation that preceded this decision? Four written responses. That’s it.
The directions cover Chatham Central and Brompton, Fort Pitt, Gillingham North, Gillingham South, Luton, Strood North and Frindsbury, and Watling. They’ve stripped out the permitted-development right that previously allowed family homes to be converted into 3-to-6-person HMOs without planning permission — larger HMOs, with seven or more occupants, already required full applications. The directions came into immediate effect on 22 January 2026 and have been operating throughout the consultation period.
Tuesday’s confirmation makes them permanent.
What changes for landlords and tenants
Until January, the General Permitted Development Order 2010 allowed any C3 dwelling-house to be converted to a C4 small HMO without an application. Under the confirmed directions, every conversion in the seven affected wards now requires a full planning application, assessed against the criteria in the Medway Local Plan and the draft Plan currently in consultation.
The change doesn’t affect existing HMOs, ban small HMOs outright, or alter the licensing regime for properties with five or more occupants on two or more storeys. Mandatory licensing under the Housing Act 2004 continues as before. Additional or selective licensing schemes can still operate in parallel.
Cllr Simon Curry, Portfolio Holder for Climate Change and Strategic Regeneration, presented the report. The lead officer is Dave Harris, Medway’s Chief Planning Officer, supported by Chris Hawkins of DHA Planning.
A consultation that went largely unnoticed
Site notices in each affected ward. A newspaper advertisement. An online consultation. Direct letters to known landlords and developers of this property type. After six weeks — four written responses arrived: two objections, one full letter of support from a neighbourhood forum, and one letter that supported the directions in principle while challenging two specific lawful development certificate refusals.
Officer commentary in the report describes the engagement as “relatively low”. Striking, given that several of the affected wards have been the subject of repeated resident complaints about HMO concentrations, parking pressure and antisocial behaviour. Officers note that the seven wards with the highest levels of housing hazards and the highest number of housing-stock complaints are the same seven wards now subject to the directions. Quite the coincidence.
The Cabinet report acknowledges that Fort Pitt, Gillingham North and Gillingham South were already identified as under significant parking pressure — in part because of their proximity to town-centre stations — before the HMO restrictions took effect.
The compensation question
Here’s where it gets expensive.
Because the directions were “immediate” rather than non-immediate, owners whose planning applications are refused — or granted only with conditions beyond those imposed by national rules — can claim compensation against the Council, provided their application is submitted within twelve months of the directions’ effective date. That twelve-month window closes on 22 January 2027. The report explicitly states that “there is no budget set aside for dealing with compensation claims” and that any successful claim “would represent a financial pressure on the Council’s budget”.
The report also signals an officer concern about a missing piece of the policy framework. To refuse applications consistently — for example, by ruling that more than 10% of properties on a given street being HMOs is grounds for refusal — Medway needs a defined proliferation threshold in its Local Plan. But the draft Local Plan 2025 hasn’t yet adopted such a threshold, which the report says could be added before adoption under paragraph 49 of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Objections and officer responses
The two letters of objection raised broadly similar arguments: that the directions were disproportionate in scope, would harm housing supply, duplicated existing licensing controls, would discourage investment, and rested on insufficient evidence.
Officers pushed back on each point. On scope, they argued that street-by-street directions would simply displace HMO conversions to neighbouring streets in the same ward. On supply, they wrote that the policy regulates rather than restricts HMOs, so credible operators can still bring forward conversions that meet quality criteria. On evidence, they pointed to the same data set submitted by one of the objectors — which independently confirmed that the seven wards with the highest levels of housing hazards and the highest number of housing-stock complaints were the seven now subject to the directions.
The LGR backdrop
The compensation window closes in early 2027 — at almost exactly the moment the Government’s Local Government Reorganisation programme is expected to begin reshaping Kent’s authorities. Under the December 2024 English Devolution White Paper, Kent’s twelve districts, Kent County Council and Medway Council are all in scope for reorganisation into a smaller number of unitaries.
Although the HMO report doesn’t name LGR explicitly, four of the five other items considered by Cabinet on Tuesday do. The implication is the same: contracts and policies are being written by a council that increasingly references its own dissolution as a planning input. A planning regime made today binds whoever inherits the Medway area after reorganisation, when the unitary boundary may no longer match the seven wards named in this week’s directions. The body issuing refusals — and shouldering compensation pressure — could plausibly be a successor authority by the time the twelve-month claim window closes.
What happens next
The Assistant Director, Legal and Governance is now authorised to issue the directions and notices to support the immediate Article 4 Directions. The Council will monitor the volume of small-HMO applications submitted in the seven wards through 2026/27 to assess workload and any cost pressure on the general fund.
For residents in any of the seven affected wards, the change is procedural rather than visible: family homes can no longer be quietly converted into shared lets without notification, and neighbours retain the right to comment on every new HMO application. For landlords with conversion plans, the message is more concrete. Any conversion in Chatham Central, Brompton, Fort Pitt, the two Gillingham seats, Luton, Strood North, Frindsbury or Watling now needs a planning application. And any refusal or restrictive condition is grounds for a compensation claim — provided the application is filed before 22 January 2027.
Key Takeaways
- Article 4 Directions confirmed across seven Medway wards, ending automatic conversion of family homes into small HMOs.
- The six-week consultation drew just four written responses from across the borough.
- Compensation claim window runs until 22 January 2027; no budget set aside for claims.
- The Local Plan does not yet contain a proliferation threshold that would let officers refuse applications consistently.
- Decision falls within the wider pattern of Cabinet writing policies that explicitly anticipate Local Government Reorganisation.
Data sources: Medway Council Cabinet papers, 5 May 2026 (democracy.medway.gov.uk); Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015; National Planning Policy Framework 2024; English Devolution White Paper, December 2024.