Greenwich has opened a new selective licensing consultation covering 18 wards, while Ealing is consulting on a five-year extension to its smaller HMO scheme and Hertsmere is seeking views on tougher amenity standards for shared housing. The combined moves point to a fresh summer push by councils to tighten oversight of private landlords in three separate local markets.
The latest consultation wave matters because it goes beyond renewing existing schemes. Greenwich is proposing a much wider private rental licensing footprint than before, Ealing is testing whether to keep borough-wide controls on smaller HMOs into the next decade, and Hertsmere is looking at the detailed standards landlords may need to meet on room sizes, bathrooms and refuse storage.
For landlords, this is another sign that local compliance risk is still spreading even after the Renters’ Rights Act launch. Operators in affected areas may face new licence applications, tighter property standards and more inspections, with councils leaning on data about hazards, damp, fire safety and antisocial behaviour to justify a broader intervention.
Greenwich proposes a much wider selective licensing map
The Royal Borough of Greenwich has opened a consultation running from 21 July to 12 October on a proposal to introduce a selective licensing scheme across 18 wards, replacing its current narrower approach. According to the council’s evidence summary, around 32,242 homes in the borough are privately rented and an estimated 5,360 have at least one serious hazard.
Greenwich said it carried out 4,130 inspections of privately rented homes between January 2024 and December 2025 and identified 4,762 hazards, including 1,226 severe hazards. The council also logged 6,104 complaints about conditions in privately rented homes between November 2020 and November 2025.
Ealing and Hertsmere add pressure on shared housing landlords
Ealing is consulting on whether to extend its borough-wide additional licensing scheme for smaller HMOs for another five years after the current arrangement expires on 31 March 2027. The proposal would keep licensing in place for shared homes occupied by three or four people from more than one household.
Hertsmere, meanwhile, is consulting on a draft HMO amenity standards policy that would set out expectations on the quality, safety and management of shared housing. The draft covers issues including bedroom sizes, bathrooms, kitchens and refuse and recycling storage.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s report on Slough’s 17,000-home licensing consultation, which showed councils are still willing to use broad licensing schemes where they argue hazards, management failures or neighbourhood pressures justify them. Alongside earlier coverage of County Durham’s wider licensing plans, the latest consultations suggest landlords should expect more local rather than national compliance pressure in the second half of 2026.
That wider point matters. Councils are not waiting for one national enforcement model to settle before acting. They are building their own local case files around conditions, complaints and shared housing standards, which means landlords with stock in multiple boroughs may now face very different rules street by street.
Landlords affected by the consultations still have a window to respond, and that matters if they want to challenge the scale, evidence base or practical impact of the proposals before any final decision is taken.
What this means for landlords
- If you own in Greenwich: Check whether your ward falls inside the proposed map and review likely licence costs, paperwork and management conditions now.
- If you run smaller HMOs in Ealing: Plan on the basis that borough-wide additional licensing may continue beyond March 2027 unless the consultation changes course.
- If you operate shared housing in Hertsmere: Review room sizes, bathroom provision and waste arrangements against the draft amenity standards before they harden into policy.
- Watch for: More councils using hazards, complaint volumes and antisocial behaviour evidence to justify wider PRS controls.
- Bottom line: Licensing expansion is still moving borough by borough, so local policy checks matter as much as national rule changes.
Editor’s view
Licensing fatigue is real, but councils are plainly not easing off. Landlords who treat each new consultation as background noise risk missing how quickly local schemes can widen from a handful of wards to a much bigger footprint.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 24 July 2026
Sources: Royal Borough of Greenwich, Ealing Council, Hertsmere Borough Council
Related reading: Slough opens 10-week consultation on 17,000-home licensing plan
