Plumstead residents have complained their area is becoming a “ghetto” following a rapid increase of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).
Those living in the area of Greenwich claim there has been a rise in anti-social behaviour and crime over the last few years, and they have linked these to the proliferation of HMOs.
Residents are also concerned that too many family homes are vanishing from Plumstead as a result of HMO conversions. They have demanded Greenwich Council do more as its current planning policies are relatively weak in regards to HMOs.
Greenwich Council said it was “concerned” about the loss of family homes and confirmed it was bringing in new measures to prevent inappropriate HMO planning applications.
It also told those living in Plumstead not to “demonise” HMO residents as the South London authority had seen no evidence to back up the claims they were housing criminals.
Local Voices on HMOs—a 150-strong residents’ group—suspects HMOs in Plumstead are being used by the council as temporary accommodation, potentially housing single men who could have mental health problems or have been recently released from prison that are the cause of the increase in crime. One Greenwich councillor said he’d be “astounded” if this was the case.
One group member told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “These people need help. They don’t need putting together in one of those bedsits.” Another said: “It’s just turning the area into a ghetto.”
One man said he lived near an HMO with a broken front door. He regularly hears shouting at night and finds rubbish strewn about the street alongside evidence of drug use. He felt sorry for its inhabitants, saying they were “clearly suffering”.
Some nine group members said their tyres had been slashed. Other concerns were raised about men exposing themselves and defecating in the street.
A Freedom of Information request sent by the group in May revealed that the number of HMO licences in Greenwich at that time was 1,611. This figure is nearly double the amount of HMOs the council said were in Greenwich less than a year prior.
It was revealed in a July 2025 full council meeting that there were 811 licensed HMOs in the borough. In that same meeting, the council said the expansion of its HMO compliance work with landlords had resulted in 564 new HMO licence applications.
Further FOI requests sent by the group revealed that the number of licensed HMOs in Plumstead & Glyndon ward had increased from 156 to 240 between the beginning of March and the end of May this year. In Plumstead Common, they increased from 56 to 94 in the same timeframe.
Local Voices on HMOs formed after residents objected to plans to convert 6 Melling Street into a six-person HMO. An appeal has been lodged against the council’s planning permission refusal that was handed down in March.
Group members Brian and Julie Connor have lived in Melling Street in Plumstead for 46 years. Their daughter and grandchildren live on the road as well. With three generations of their family living in Melling Street, Brian said the neighbourhood has a “family feel” that they feel is currently under threat.
Residents used to throw street parties, but Brian said there was no chance this would happen now.
Melling Street residents claimed there had been an increase in anti-social behaviour, sexual assaults, car crime, package thefts and drug dealing over the past two years. Brian said he and his wife would wake up to drunken shouting in the middle of the night.
He said: “We get a lot of kids here walking up and down and going to school. A couple of young girls have been followed. The police have come round and asked for our footage on CCTV.
“I just feel that family homes are being erased. There’d be nowhere for young families to go anymore. It’s doing a lot of damage, I think, to the community.”
Fellow Melling Street resident Julie Brasier added: “At the end of the day, this is our community. We’re families living here. We’ve chosen to live here and this is our community, and it’s just being eroded isn’t it?”
Julie and her husband Ronald said they had experienced and seen the exact same things. Julie was recently woken in the middle of the night to what she thought was thieves trying to enter her son-in-law’s van.
Instead, she discovered it was drug users inhaling nitrous oxide. According to Julie, she shouted at them to stop and they said they were just waiting for a taxi.
Another resident Les Thornton said: “I cannot believe they’re still being given HMO licences with all the problems we highlight. Nobody cares.”
Greenwich Council installed its own CCTV camera on Melling Street earlier this year in response to residents’ concerns, but it has said there is no data to back up claims the rise in anti-social behaviour is linked to HMOs.
Local Voices on HMOs also claim there are several unlicensed HMOs throughout Plumstead and rogue landlords are converting their properties into HMOs without the proper planning permission.
Mark Brayford is a housing consultant with 35 years’ experience who has worked for the boroughs of Ealing, Lewisham and Hammersmith & Fulham as well as TfL and some London-based housing associations.
He thought Greenwich had “lost control” of its entire HMO process because there was a lack of communication and collaboration between its planning, licensing and building control departments.
He said: “I’m scared that there’s a massive increase in properties that planning aren’t checking properly, licensing aren’t checking properly and building enforcement are ignoring. Then if something happens, everyone will point the finger at someone else and it will be a systematic governance failure.
“If you are licensing hundreds and hundreds of properties in a few months, are you doing the diligence and the checks to make sure those properties are safe?”
The LDRS spoke to Greenwich Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Development Tom Creswell about the concerns of Plumstead residents.
Cllr Creswell said the council was concerned about the loss of family homes and it was bringing in new planning measures to add greater protections against inappropriate HMO conversions.
He said: “We want to make sure that we have the right pipeline of family homes for people coming into the borough. We’re growing and it’s a very exciting place to be, in Greenwich. We want to make sure we have enough family homes and we believe these measures we’re going to bring in on HMOs will protect that pipeline of family housing.”
Two key measures are being introduced by the council to crackdown on the proliferation of HMOS across Greenwich. The first is that homes with a gross internal area of less than 130sqm will not be permitted to be converted into HMOs.
The second is that planning permission for a new HMO will not be granted if there are three existing or permitted HMOs within the nearest ten properties of the application property.
Cllr Creswell told the LDRS that he had asked Greenwich planners to draw up a material consideration note which allows Greenwich’s planning committees to take these measures onboard before the new Local Plan is implemented, something that will take years.
Cllr Creswell said these new measures can be called upon from the next Local Planning Committee, which will take place at the end of next month.
When it came to concerns that Plumstead HMOs were being used as temporary accommodation, Cllr Creswell said only 3.5 per cent of people housed in temporary accommodation by Greenwich Council were in HMOs. This equates to just 69 people.
Responding to allegations that these HMOs were potentially housing single males recently released from prison, he said: “I would be astounded if there was a concerted effort to do what’s being alleged, and it is just 3.5 per cent of our temporary accommodation mix. I just don’t think there’s any credibility in that.”
Cllr Creswell said the council was trying to identify anti-social behaviour hotspots through the introduction of more CCTV, but it currently didn’t have the data to back up claims that these reports were linked to nearby HMOs.
He said: “HMOs in and of themselves are not inherently bad things. They are not inhabited by inherently bad people. You get people who cause issues in the community in whatever type of housing that you have and it’s really important that we don’t demonise any one group.
“So whilst I understand that there are some criticisms from residents that say no more HMOs should be approved and they should be abolished, they do provide a really key form of housing for lots of people.”
Cllr Creswell said residents must acknowledge that the country is in a housing crisis and that HMOs form an “important part” of the housing mix within Greenwich.
He added: “We can’t demonise an entire housing group because the data and the evidence simply isn’t there to back up the claims that every HMO has a horrible set of residents in.”
Cllr Creswell said it was a “key priority” for him to better integrate different council departments and he acknowledged that the planning, licensing and building control departments within Greenwich Council “need to interact more” when dealing with HMOs.
He also said the council was currently updating its enforcement strategy following new powers introduced by the Renters’ Rights Act that came into force earlier this year. The council can now hand out fines of up to £40,000 to rogue landlords whose HMOs are incorrectly licensed or not up to a liveable standard.
Cllr Creswell said: “I’m keenly aware that there is a situation at the moment where more HMOs are emerging and we want to make sure that everyone who lives in an HMO and the people living around them are not being taken advantage of by landlords simply looking to scrape a profit.”
Despite all Greenwich Council has said it will be doing to combat the astronomical rise of HMOs throughout the borough, many in Plumstead will fear it’s too little, too late.
One Local Voices on HMOs member said : “HMOs have infiltrated the community. This was a family area and it is taking family property away forever. These homes will not come back on the market as family properties.”
