A Slough HMO appeal has ended with permission for a nine-person HMO after the Inspector rejected the council’s family-housing objection.
The key fact was the starting point. The Yew Tree Road property was already lawfully used as a five-bedroom, six-person Class C4 HMO, so the appeal did not involve taking an existing family home out of family use.
Inspector C J Leigh allowed appeal 6010730 on 25th September 2026, overturning Slough Borough Council’s refusal of application P/13960/008. The permission is for a nine-bedroom, nine-person sui generis HMO.
Why the Slough HMO appeal turned on the existing use
Slough relied on Core Policy 4 of the Slough Strategy 2006-2026, which seeks to prevent a net loss of family accommodation. The council argued that the property could readily be converted back into a single family dwelling.
Leigh was not persuaded that a possible future change was the right planning baseline. The decision records that the property was already a six-person HMO.
“the appeal property is not in use as family accommodation”
Inspector C J Leigh
There was no indication that the owner intended to return it to a family dwelling in either the short or longer term. The Inspector also said no incentive, requirement or council mechanism had been identified that would bring about such a change.
That distinction was decisive in the Slough HMO appeal: changing from the lawful six-person Class C4 HMO to the proposed nine-person HMO would not conflict with the policy protecting existing family accommodation.
Nine en-suite rooms cleared the space test
The council also challenged the standard of accommodation, but that objection did not survive the detailed layout assessment.
All nine bedrooms would have en-suite facilities. The Inspector found that the rooms met Slough’s HMO standards, while the council’s delegated report had accepted that the bedrooms would satisfy the nationally described space standards when occupied as single rooms.
The shared kitchen and dining space was another key point. Slough’s HMO standards identify a minimum kitchen size of 11 sq m for nine or more sharers. The proposed kitchen/diner measured 22.96 sq m, which Leigh described as notably greater than this minimum
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Two utility rooms and a further utility/dining room added more shared space. The Inspector also found the existing rear amenity area remained accessible, usable and of a reasonable size for the proposed occupation.
More residents did not mean unacceptable disturbance
Leigh accepted that three extra residents were likely to generate more comings and goings. Even so, the Inspector did not consider that the change would materially alter the character of the property or create an unacceptable increase in disturbance for neighbours.
The Slough HMO appeal also survived the parking objection. Spaces were shown to the front and rear, a cycle store was proposed, the council’s transport officers had raised no objection and the property is close to Slough town centre. Leigh concluded that the level of parking is sufficient
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The Slough HMO appeal contrasts with Planning Geek’s recent Slough HMO enforcement report, where the lawful planning use, internal space and parking evidence were materially different.
Permission stops at nine residents
The allowed appeal is not an open-ended approval for a larger HMO. Condition 3 states that the property may be occupied by no more than nine residents at any one time.
The Inspector said the occupation limit was needed for precision and to make the permission enforceable. A drawings condition also secures the approved layout, while the usual three-year commencement condition applies.
The Slough HMO appeal is a useful reminder that an HMO proposal has to be judged from the lawful use that actually exists. Here, Slough’s family-housing argument failed because the property was already a lawful Class C4 HMO, while the detailed accommodation, neighbour and parking objections were each rejected on the evidence.
You can read the locally hosted text copy of the appeal decision. The Planning Inspectorate appeal record is also available.
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