‘Lifts have been smashed up’, ‘doors have been kicked in’, and residents have woken up to ‘banging on the wrong door’ by unruly Airbnb guests.
That’s according to a senior councillor who has shared his own experience of dealing with visitors staying in a ‘short-term let’ (STL) in his apartment block. Marcus Johns, who represents and lives in the Deansgate ward, says the issue ‘is every weekend’.
His comments come as a new council report has revealed that roughly 3,600 properties or spare rooms in Manchester were on Airbnb in the winter, with more expected to be listed as STLs on other rival websites, and the peak coming in summer last year at 3,911. It is a significant increase from pre-pandemic levels, when 3,429 properties in the city were on Airbnb.
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The current stats mean 2,118 entire homes being taken off the market, driving down the amount of housing available to residents — which therefore could be leading to rent or price rises elsewhere.
Authority figures believe the increase has been driven by a lack of regulation on turning homes into STLs — with planning permission not required for a conversion. There is also a shortfall in traditional hotel rooms in the city — with thousands more being built over the next few years — just as new visitor attractions like Co-op Live and Aviva Studios open.
But Coun Johns is far from the only figure to say the STLs can ruin residents’ lives. “The impact they have on noise, anti-social behaviour (ASB) and rubbish,” added Coun Irene Robinson, who represents Ancoats and Beswick.
“There’s a few in my ward where residents are being kept up at night and feel unsafe in their homes because they do not know who is coming and going in their building.
“We do need to clamp down on it. I am not saying get rid of STLs but we need ASB to be nipped in the bud. Most of what I hear about STLs on the doorstep is negative. Even where there are clauses in the building [leases] where you are not allowed to sublet they are just ignored. We need to be able to shut these down.”
Both Coun Robinson and Johns were speaking at a meeting of the authority’s economy scrutiny committee on Tuesday (June 25), where the latter also said ‘we are seeing people in the city centre renting a property to entirely be an Airbnb which the landlord often does not know about’.
However, the council’s community safety enforcement lead, Fiona Sharkey, said the authority does take action — and it has evidence that it works.
“When we get issues with noise, waste, and ASB we can take action in the same way we can with a tenancy,” she told the Town Hall. “But because we do not have a register of STLs we rely on the intelligence of residents and councillors and we build up our own register based on previous complaints.
“We will work proactively with landlords. In the past, we have issued closure notices. We have worked with Airbnb and Booking.com to provide good neighbour advice.
“But the lack of a registering regime does hamper us. Most STLs where we have had issues and contacted the hosts we do not have repeat issues but where we do, we have gone to take enforcement action.”
The current government has plans to introduce a national register of STLs so local authorities can keep track of where they are in their city, alongside reforms to require new STL conversions get planning approval. But there are also fears that Labour’s proposed ban on ‘no-fault’ evictions could lead to more landlords renting their properties out as STLs, not long-term homes.
“If the relative regulatory burden shifts too far in one direction, then there is the risk that more landlords will come out of the long-term lettings market in favour of STLs,” the report explained. But even in the face of the headaches for neighbours and current lack of a national register, council chiefs say STLs won’t disappear from Manchester.
“We are not going to stop STLs completely. But the new legislation will allow us to have more control,” said Coun Gavin White, its housing executive member.
