Amenity Standards for Privately Rented dwellings

The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) was introduced with the Housing Act 2004 as a new approach to the way individual dwellings are inspected and assessed. The underlying principle of the HHSRS is that any residential premises should provide a safe and healthy environment for any potential occupier or visitor. Therefore, to satisfy this basic principle, a dwelling should be designed, constructed, and maintained with non-hazardous materials and should be free from both unnecessary and avoidable hazards.

Usually on the request of a tenant the inspecting Environmental Health Officer or Technical Officer will conduct a HHSRS inspection with the aim to identify all the deficiencies within the dwelling. A deficiency is defined as being the failure of a particular element to meet the ideal or optimum standard as best to prevent or minimise a hazard. Such a failure could be inherent, such because of the original design, construction, or manufacture, or it could be a result of deterioration, disrepair or a lack of repair or maintenance.

Once the deficiencies within a dwelling have been identified a health and safety risk calculation will be made. The calculation will be based on the risk to the most vulnerable potential occupant of that dwelling, whether anyone, or a most vulnerable occupant, is resident in the premises at the time of the inspection, and the calculation will result in the hazard being given a score. That score will determine the band into which the hazard will fall. The regulations prescribe that hazards falling within bands A to C are Category 1 Hazards, while those within bands D to J are Category 2 Hazards. Banding is intended to avoid the impression of spurious accuracy. The HHSRS relates poor housing conditions to the kinds of harm attributable to such conditions - it does not try to assess a specific health outcome in relation to the current occupant.

The Housing Act 2004 places a general duty on the Local Authority to act against all Category 1 Hazards. The Local Authority will therefore actively seek to have the necessary works to remediate all Category 1 Hazards carried out within a suitable time frame. This will be done either by obtaining acceptable assurances from the landlord that the work will be done and/ or by the service of a formal enforcement notice.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council will also aim to address significant Category 2 Hazards either by obtaining acceptable assurances from the landlord that the work will be done and/ or by the service of a formal enforcement notice.