OXFORD’s city council is calling for more powers to crack down on dodgy Airbnb-style rentals.

The Scottish Government is mulling over a raft of new powers which would allow councils to regulate how short-term lets the like of Airbnb and similar websites operate.

But no such powers have yet been discussed in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

In Oxford, which is on the sharp end of the UK’s housing crisis, the city council has said short-term lets have ‘resulted in a loss of valuable family homes and, in extreme cases, properties being used for illegal or anti-social purposes'.

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Some lets in Oxford have been used as pop-up brothels or for loud and wild parties.

The council has been calling for the UK Government to give it the power to crack down on dodgy short-term lets for more than two years now.

Following the announcement of new measures in Scotland, Oxford’s council cabinet member for planning and housing delivery Alex Hollingsworth renewed the appeal.

He said: “We welcome the proposals in Scotland, which come after cities like Edinburgh suffered exactly the same issues that Oxford has.

Oxford Mail:

Alex Hollingsworth

“Short-term lets have a place in a tourist city like ours, but making sure that they get planning permission and a licence will mean that the council can prevent the loss of too many family homes, and protect neighbours when there’s a problem.

“This is exactly what English cities need, and we hope that the UK Government will learn from what is proposed in Scotland.”

Currently, councils are only able to easily tackle the ‘symptoms’ of short term lets gone rogue, including noise complaints and anti-social behaviour.

However, they can go through a lengthy legal process to shut down short-term lets, and Oxford City Council found some success in this earlier this year, shutting down a let on William Street.

Read again about how the landlord was banned from letting out his house on AirBnB here

But what it wants to do is make all short-term let owners sign up to a register, prove they can operate safely and sensibly, and pay for a licence.

In Scotland, new powers being proposed by the Government would allow councils to draw up ‘control areas’ where the number of short-term lets could be limited, and to create a complete register of all the short term lets in their areas.