HMOs in Cambridge
The Guest Road Area Residents’ Association has plotted HMOs from different datasets so that the councillors and residents of Cambridge can see where these are on a map. Each dot represents one HMO.
What is a HMO?
For planning purposes, the government defines a property as a house in multiple occupation (HMO) when at least three tenants live there, forming more than one household, and they share toilet, bathroom or kitchen facilities.
What is a licensed HMO?
All licensed HMOs in this report are on Cambridge City Council or South Cambridgeshire District Council’s mandatory HMO licensing register. The councils state that landlords must licence a HMO if it is occupied by five or more people forming two or more separate households, or if it is a purpose-built flat in a block of up to two flats and occupied as an HMO by five or more people. A household is defined as either a single person or members of the same family who are living together. See Cambridge City Council’s licensing page and South Cambridgeshire District Council’s licensing page for more details.
Are all the HMOs in Cambridge licensed HMOs?
No. Many are legitimately exempt. For example, Cambridge college and Anglia Ruskin University HMOs operating under approved codes of practice (such as the National Code scheme and the Student Accommodation Code) are legitimately exempt from HMO licensing under Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004. Other HMOs are smaller HMOs (occupied by fewer than five people) which also legitimately do not appear on the mandatory HMO licensing register. There may also be illegally unlicensed HMOs in Cambridge: this report does not attempt to map these properties as no public address data exists for them.
Are all the legitimate HMOs in Cambridge mapped in this report?
No. This report is examining the concentrations and locations of HMOs in Cambridge to aid discussions about Article 4 Directions and the Draft Cambridge Local Plan. The focus is on domestic houses as much as possible. So a general rule of thumb is: when an HMO can be entered from a public street, it is generally included in the dataset — and when tenants need to go via a porters lodge or an equivalent campus entry-point in order to access their shared home, it is excluded. See Data & Privacy section for more details.
- At least 1,475 HMOs have been identified across Cambridge, from five publicly accessible datasets.
- Council licensing records account for 948 of these.
- A further 445 are exempt from council licensing because they are HMOs let by Cambridge colleges, Anglia Ruskin University, or approved large-scale commercial student accommodation providers — and are registered with an approved code scheme (such as the ANUK/Unipol National Code register and UUK/GuildHE Student Accommodation Code).
- A further 17 HMOs were given C4 planning permission or certificates of lawful use between 15 July 2021 and 15 July 2026, and do not yet appear on the council licensing register (last checked: 15 July 2026). This does not suggest any wrongdoing — applications may be in progress, building work to transform the property in a HMO may still be underway or the HMO may be exempt from council licensing rules if the owner of the property is a member of an approved code scheme.
- The true number of HMOs in Cambridge is likely higher: small HMOs (four occupants or fewer) and illegally unlicensed HMOs leave no public address data, so cannot be mapped.
Read more: where this data comes from
The Guest Road Area Residents’ Association (GRARA) combined five publicly accessible datasets:
- Cambridge City Council licensing records (874),
- South Cambridgeshire licensing records for north Cambridge (74),
- the Unipol National Code register covering Cambridge colleges (503) and private landlords who rent to students (11)
- the Student Accommodation Code register covering Anglia Ruskin University properties (18),
- Greater Cambridge planning records (17),
- plus information about HMO accommodation on Cambridge college websites (68).
Cambridge college and ARU HMOs don’t appear on council registers at all, and neither do some HMOs let to students by private landlords. Under Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004, educational and non-educational establishments (ie private landlords) registered with an “approved code” scheme are exempt from HMO licensing for student accommodation. All 31 Cambridge colleges have participated in the National Code scheme since 2010; ARU registers separately under the Student Accommodation Code. The 503 college properties mapped here were identified from either the ‘property lookup’ feature of the National Code register or the college’s own website and corroborating public records.
Planning records were also examined. Some HMOs have been given planning permission or a certificate of lawful use, but do not appear on council licensing registers because they are not licensed (although they may be in the process of getting a licence).
The true number of HMOs in Cambridge is almost certainly higher than this map shows. It excludes HMOs for four people or fewer (which don’t require a licence) and properties where landlords are illegally operating unlicensed HMOs for five or more people — in both cases no public address data exists.
🔍 Spotted an error?
While every effort has been made to verify addresses and remove duplicates during classification and spatial analysis of this data, some properties may have been wrongly omitted or accidentally misclassified. If you spot an error in this data, let us know here.
ℹ️ Did you know?
You can raise reports of suspected unlicensed, licensable HMOs for investigation via the online form on the Cambridge City Council website: click on ‘Tell us about a house in multiple occupation’ — Licensing of houses in multiple occupation - Cambridge City Council.
This report reflects datasets accessed in June 2026 and updated on a rolling basis — some recently licensed addresses may not yet appear.
Where HMOs are distributed in Cambridge
Heat density across all 1,475 mapped properties. Zoom in to see street-level concentration.
🔍 Spotted an error?
While every effort has been made to verify addresses and remove duplicates during classification and spatial analysis of this data, some properties may have been wrongly omitted or accidentally misclassified. If you spot an error in this data, let us know here.
ℹ️ Did you know?
You can raise reports of suspected unlicensed, licensable HMOs for investigation via the online form on the Cambridge City Council website: click on ‘Tell us about a house in multiple occupation’ — Licensing of houses in multiple occupation - Cambridge City Council.
Hotspots
Distribution of HMOs by ward and ownership structure across Cambridge.
Analysis and limitations of the data
An assessment of the dataset’s strengths and limitations, for councillors and policymakers.
Building a fuller picture of HMOs in Cambridge
The Guest Road Area Residents’ Association (GRARA) has identified at least 1,475 HMOs in Cambridge by combining six publicly accessible datasets. Together they provide a clearer picture of HMO distribution than council licensing data alone — though the total is still likely an undercount.
| Dataset | Properties | Why it’s included |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge City Council licensing | 874 | Mandatory & additional HMO licensing register |
| South Cambridgeshire licensing | 74 | Mandatory & additional HMO licensing register |
| National Code — Cambridge colleges | 427 | Exempt from licensing under Housing Act 2004, Sch. 14 |
| National Code — commercial providers | 11 | Purpose-built blocks run by commercial operators |
| Student Accommodation Code — ARU | 18 | Anglia Ruskin University’s own accreditation scheme |
| Planning permissions & certificates of lawfulness | 17 | HMOs given planning permission or certificates of lawful use between 15 July 2021 and 15 July 2026, which do not appear on the council licensing register (last checked: 15 July 2026) |
Ward-level counts
Ward-level counts use precise spatial analysis: every HMO coordinate has been spatially joined against ONS 2021 ward boundary polygons.
Key findings:
- Market ward has the largest concentration of HMOs (314 HMOs in total, of which 271 are identified as Cambridge college properties not on any council register) and the most dense clusters. There are 208 HMOs in Market which are within 50m of another five or more HMOs, and 130 HMOs are within 100m of at least 16 other HMOs. Petersfield and Romsey wards also show significant clustering. Romsey has 154 HMOs in total and Petersfield has 151 HMOs. In Romsey, 37 HMOs are within 50m of at least five other HMOs, while Petersfield has 59 HMOs within 50m of at least five other HMOs.
- On the landlord register, 144 private landlords own 503 council-licensed properties in Cambridge — more than half of the council register. There are 24 council-licensed landlords who each hold five or more properties, controlling 206 HMOs between them. In other words, just 24 private landlords own 22% of the entire council-licensed HMO register.
- Babouris Property Management Ltd holds 41 council-licensed HMOs, more than any other HMO landlord, while St John’s College holds 43 National Code HMOs, which our data suggests is more than any other Cambridge college.
- Street-level clustering analysis shows that 436 HMOs sit in clusters of three to six within 50 metres of each other across all datasets. A further 259 form hyper-dense clusters of seven or more within 50 metres. There are 30 HMOs within 50 metres of a single address on St John’s Road on the edge of Jesus Green (9 St John’s Road, CB5 8AN).
Planning permissions and certificates of lawfulness not yet on the licensing register
Alongside the four licensed/registered datasets above, GRARA has tracked 17 Cambridge City Council planning decisions since 2021 that either grant permission for a new HMO or certify one as already lawful — properties that do not yet appear on the council’s HMO licensing register because the change of use has only just been approved, or the licence application has not yet caught up with the planning decision. Of these, 15 were given full planning permissions (or listed building/S19 consents) for a change of use to an HMO granted in the past five years, and 2 were given Certificates of Lawful Development or Use confirming a property was already operating as an HMO.
Legal framework
Cambridge college and Anglia Ruskin University properties operating under approved codes of practice (such as the National Code scheme and the Student Accommodation Code) are exempt from HMO licensing under Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004. These properties are effectively invisible — they do not appear on council licensing registers and are not subject to the council’s HMO licensing regime. They are, however, findable on the websites of the approved code scheme providers (click on any property on the dot map for details of how to do this).
The majority of the 427 college properties and 18 ARU properties mapped here are numbered houses on ordinary Cambridge streets and, from the street, are often indistinguishable from owner-occupied homes, and may compete with owner-occupied housing stock within the local housing market.
For example, on Collier Road, there are 20 Victorian terraced houses and 17 of these properties (1, 3, 5, 7, 9 11, 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31, 33, 37, 39), are registered with The Student Accommodation Code by Anglia Ruskin University. None of them appear on the council licensing register.
Implications for monitoring HMO concentrations
The council licensing register shows zero HMOs on Collier Road. The true figure is 17. This is not a data quality failure — it is a structural gap in the regulatory framework.
The critical detail, quoted directly from the City of York HMO Supplementary Planning Document, is that council tax exemption “applies to properties occupied only by one or more students either as full time or term time accommodation. Properties falling within ‘Halls of residence’ on campus will not be included, however some accommodation owned or managed by the universities off campus will [be] included.”
York shows a working, data-driven model that Cambridge could adopt if it introduced Article 4 — and in its absence, this report reconstructs as much of that picture as public data allows without access to council data about student properties exempt from council data.
See What this report excludes in the Data & Privacy tab for the full exclusion criteria.
Article 4 directions and HMO concentration controls
An Article 4 direction removes permitted development rights — in this context, the right to convert a family home (Use Class C3) into an HMO (Use Class C4) without planning permission. Without one, landlords can convert properties without any council scrutiny. With one in place, every conversion requires a planning application, giving the council power to refuse where concentration already exceeds a set threshold.
The 12-month starting gun
Once a council makes an Article 4 direction, it must give at least 12 months’ notice before the direction takes effect. The earlier Cambridge City Council acts, the fewer properties are lost to the market before controls are in place. (Source: Schedule 3, Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015.)
Article 4 directions are now in force across many UK university cities, including Oxford, Bristol, Nottingham, Exeter, Leicester, and Leeds.
The 10% threshold
The National HMO Lobby argues that concentrations above 10% of properties can adversely affect community character, and identifies this as a recognised tipping point.
Local authorities including Durham, York, Brighton, Manchester, Salford, and Bristol have adopted policies setting a 10% threshold within a defined radius of any application site.
GRARA’s recommendation
GRARA is calling on Cambridge City Council to introduce an Article 4 direction covering the city, with a 10% HMO concentration threshold applied within a 100-metre radius of any planning application site. This mirrors best practice in comparable university cities.
After compiling this report, GRARA further calls for a publicly searchable HMO register, that includes HMOs owned by colleges and Anglia Ruskin, so residents, councillors, and prospective buyers can see the true picture of HMO concentration on any street. This could easily be created using the data sources we have used in this report or by combining all licensing, planning and council tax data, as well as properties “known to the council to be HMOs”, as York does.
Data and Privacy
Data Source and Accuracy Disclaimer
Every property in this report originated from a publicly accessible register, database or other public record. The property and landlord data was sourced in June 2026 from six publicly accessible sources: Cambridge City Council HMO Licence Register, South Cambridgeshire District Council HMO Licence Register, the National Code register (covering Cambridge college properties and commercial student accommodation providers — Yugo, PfP Students, CRM Students, Abodus, Collegiate AC Ltd, Student Castle, Aparto, OpenArch and Downing Students), the Student Accommodation Code register (covering Anglia Ruskin University properties), Cambridge City Council planning decisions (full planning permissions and Certificates of Lawful Development/Use, obtained via the Greater Cambridge Planning website), and college websites. This report represents a static snapshot taken at that date and may not reflect subsequent changes. For the most current accreditation or licensing status, please consult the relevant registers and websites directly.
Purpose-built commercial student accommodation blocks (such as the Forum, Student Castle, and CB1 Accommodation) and properties with recent planning permission or a Certificate of Lawful Development that have not yet reached the council's licensing register are included, shown as their own categories on the dot map. This report excludes small or unlicensed private HMOs for which no public licence, planning, or code-registration record exists — these are, by definition, not identifiable from public data.
The Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire licensing data derives from statutory public registers maintained under the Housing Act 2004, which local authorities are legally required to publish and make available for public inspection. The National Code and Student Accommodation Code data is drawn from publicly searchable registers maintained by those schemes for the purposes of student and resident information.
As long as a student accommodation provider is registered with an approved code, their HMOs are not subject to council licensing and the addresses of these properties do not need to be listed on the ‘property lookup’ section of the National Code website in order to be compliant with the code and HMO licensing laws. Find out more about the Cambridge student accommodation providers registered with Unipol’s National Code here, or read more about the Student Code here.
What this report excludes
This report is concerned with the impact of HMOs on residential housing stock in Cambridge. So a general rule of thumb is: when an HMO can be entered from a public street, it is generally included in the dataset — and when students need to go via a porters lodge or college-managed entry barrier in order to access their home, it is excluded.
This report excludes: It is the intention of GRARA to show only Cambridge college and Anglia Ruskin HMOs meeting this criteria in this report. Errors and omissions can be reported via the link below.Read more
🔍 Spotted an error?
While every effort has been made to verify addresses and remove duplicates during classification and spatial analysis of this data, some properties may have been wrongly omitted or accidentally misclassified. If you spot an error in this data, let us know here.
ℹ️ Did you know?
You can raise reports of suspected unlicensed, licensable HMOs for investigation via the online form on the Cambridge City Council website: click on ‘Tell us about a house in multiple occupation’ — Licensing of houses in multiple occupation - Cambridge City Council.
This report reflects datasets accessed in June 2026, updated on a rolling basis by councils and approved code providers — some recently licensed addresses may not yet appear.
Every property in this report originated from a publicly accessible register, database or other public record. Where ownership attribution required confirmation, it was corroborated using other publicly available records, including HM Land Registry title data where appropriate. Where ownership could not be confidently attributed, the property was not assigned to a named college.
Landlord names are published only where the landlord is a corporate or institutional entity — not personal data — or where an individual holds a large enough portfolio of HMOs that identification contributes materially to understanding patterns of commercial and multi-property ownership within the city. Individual landlords holding a small number of properties are not named.
A legitimate interests assessment has been undertaken in conjunction with GDPR guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office.
Data Protection & Restrictive Use
All data in this report is used for non-commercial civic research and public interest purposes, under the legitimate interests basis of UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f). The purpose is to inform planning policy and support the case for an Article 4 direction in Cambridge — a legitimate aim that is proportionate to any privacy interest engaged.
Where landlord names are published in this report — corporate and institutional entities, and individuals with a substantial portfolio of HMOs — those parties are acting in a regulated commercial capacity. Persons who hold HMO licences do so under a statutory framework that mandates public registration, and where the scale of their portfolio underlines that commercial dimension, their reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to those licensed activities is correspondingly reduced. This same reasoning is why smaller individual landlords, whose activity is less clearly commercial in character, are not named in this report.
No Direct Marketing
Users are strictly prohibited from harvesting, scraping, or copying landlord names, property addresses, or contact information from this report to create mailing lists, sales databases, or for any form of unsolicited commercial solicitation.
Prohibition of Misuse
This consolidated data may not be used for harassment, automated profiling, or the creation of unauthorised public blacklists. Any reuse must respect applicable UK data protection law.
Density charts and maps
This tab looks at how tightly packed HMOs are with one another. Use the box below to check any address, or explore the two maps beneath it to see clustering across the whole city.
Two maps showing how densely HMOs are concentrated across Cambridge. The first shows street-level clustering within 50 metres; the second shows the full count of other HMOs within 100 metres of each property, across all datasets.
What this map shows: for each of the 1,475 mapped HMOs — how many other HMOs sit within a 100-metre radius?
Market ward is the most concentrated by every measure — driven by the Portugal Street, Lower Park Street and St John's Road clusters where council-licensed HMOs and Cambridge college HMOs sit densely together. Petersfield and Romsey wards also show significant clustering.
| Ward | Total HMOs and HMOs in this ward |
HMOs/HMOs with 5+ others within 50 metres |
Highest no. recorded within 50m of another HMO/HMO |
Highest no. recorded within 100m of another HMO/HMO |
Average no. within 100m of each HMO/HMO in this ward |
HMOs/HMOs with 16+ others within 100m |
|---|
Market ward is the most concentrated by every measure — driven by the Portugal Street, Lower Park Street and St John's Road clusters where council-licensed HMOs and Cambridge college HMOs sit densely together. Petersfield and Romsey wards also show significant clustering.
Spotlight on Landlords
This section of the report shines a spotlight on public and private landlords.
Our research indicates 144 private landlords own two or more council-licensed HMOs, between them holding 503 of the 948 properties — more than half the combined council register.
There are 24 council-licensed landlords who each hold five or more properties, controlling 206 HMOs between them. See table below.
Among the public sector landlords, St John's is the largest identified landlord of shared student homes, renting out 41 shared properties, followed by Pembroke (39) and Jesus (37). Some of the most eye-catching clusters sit on individual streets: Downing College rents out 19 HMOs on Lensfield Road alone, Anglia Ruskin University lets 17 on Collier Road, and Jesus College rents out 23 on Lower Park Street.
Interactive map of HMO landlords with council licences
Every council-licensed HMO in Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire, plotted by landlord.
You can raise reports of suspected unlicensed, licensable HMOs for investigation via the online form on the Cambridge City Council website: Licensing of houses in multiple occupation - Cambridge City Council.
Summary
64% of Cambridge’s identified HMOs are associated with council-licensed private landlords, rather than colleges, ARU or commercial providers. Many hold portfolios that span several wards at once — 39 of the 63 landlords with five or more HMOs have properties in more than one ward. Ownership is concentrated at the top: just 24 landlords own 206 properties between them — 22% of the entire council-licensed register.
The 1,475 properties mapped here represent the most that can be identified from open sources, and should be treated as a minimum rather than a complete count. Properties can be missed where an HMO is not yet registered, is exempt from licensing, or simply has not yet been identified from public records.
Interactive map of HMOs owned by Cambridge colleges, Anglia Ruskin University and other educational institutions
Every HMO rented out to students by Cambridge college and Anglia Ruskin University is plotted on this map, using data from the National Code register, the Student Accommodation Code register, college websites and public records.
Summary
The Cambridge colleges and Anglia Ruskin University together hold 445 HMOs across Cambridge. Of the 427 college HMOs, 420 (98%) could be attributed to a specific college from public data; the remaining 7 are shown in dark grey on the map. Among the properties that could be attributed, St John’s leads with 43, followed by Pembroke (40), Jesus (39), Gonville & Caius (32) and Peterhouse (26). Because these properties fall under approved code schemes rather than council licensing, they are entirely absent from the standard council register and only appear here because GRARA has combined multiple registers into a single dataset.
Read more
This report excludes:
- halls of residences and purpose-built accommodation inside university and college campuses.
- self-contained flats intended for couples, single students or families. Examples of properties removed on this basis include 96 Regent Street (Downing College), 12 Madingley Road (St John’s College), 20 & 35 Eltisley Avenue and 19, 20 & 35 Marlowe Road (Queens’ College), Flats 1-2, 32 Jesus Lane (Jesus College), 1A Hertford Street (Magdalene College), 24 Fitzwilliam Street and 36 Parkside (Peterhouse), 31 Queen’s Edith’s Way (Clare College), 17 & 21 Trafalgar Road (Queens’ College), 28 Ferry Path — Alice Cheng House (Gonville & Caius College), 9 Rose Crescent — Radcliffe Court (Gonville & Caius College), and 7, 8, 9 & 10 Harvey Road (Gonville & Caius College), and 17 West Road, 19 Grange Road, and 37 Selwyn Gardens (Selwyn College).
- Shared accommodation inside newly-created campuses outside the historic city centre. Examples of newly-built accommodation sites excluded from this report include Storey’s Way (Churchill College), Cranmer Road (King’s College), Leckhampton (Corpus Christi College), Clare Court, St Regis and most of Castle Court (Clare College), Swirles Court (Girton College), Castle Street (Lucy Cavendish College), the Rosalind Franklin Building (Newnham College), and the Harvey Court site on West Road, including Finella and Springfield (Gonville & Caius College), and the St Chad’s site on Grange Road, including Old House and Silver House (St Catharine’s College).
It is the intention of GRARA to show only Cambridge college and Anglia Ruskin HMOs meeting this criteria in the maps above. Errors and omissions can be reported via the link below.
🔍 Spotted an error?
While every effort has been made to verify addresses and remove duplicates during classification and spatial analysis of this data, some properties may have been wrongly omitted or accidentally misclassified. If you spot an error in this data, let us know here.
ℹ️ Did you know?
You can raise reports of suspected unlicensed, licensable HMOs for investigation via the online form on the Cambridge City Council website: click on ‘Tell us about a house in multiple occupation’ — Licensing of houses in multiple occupation - Cambridge City Council.
Response to the Iceni HMO Study
A response to the Greater Cambridge Houses in Multiple Occupation Study (Iceni Projects, June 2026), prepared on behalf of GRARA.
A licensing exemption is not a planning exemption
The Iceni HMO study maps council-licensed HMOs, but leaves out college-managed and Anglia Ruskin University HMOs, which this report includes. Those properties are exempt from council licensing under Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004 — but that's a housing-regulation exemption, not a planning one.
For planning purposes, they're still HMOs. Under an Article 4 Direction, they'd count towards the concentration of HMOs in a neighbourhood just like any other. They sit on the same streets as privately owned HMOs and shape the same patterns the study is trying to measure.
Building a planning assessment mainly on the licensing register is a real methodological choice — and the study doesn't say much about what leaving out institutionally managed HMOs means for its findings.
A broader evidence base produces a different picture
GRARA’s dataset includes college-managed HMOs and Anglia Ruskin University HMOs. As a result the dataset contains 1,440 mapped properties, compared with fewer than 950 properties included within Iceni’s principal analysis.
The additional properties are not randomly distributed. They are concentrated in particular parts of the city and materially alter the observed pattern of HMO concentrations.
The concentration pattern changes
Using council licensing data alone, Petersfield and Romsey emerge as the principal concentration hotspots.
When college and ARU properties are incorporated, Market ward contains 314 HMOs, including around 271 college-managed properties absent from the council licensing register. On every clustering measure applied by GRARA, Market becomes the most concentrated ward in Cambridge.
This does not necessarily invalidate Iceni’s findings for Petersfield and Romsey. It does, however, suggest that the study provides only a partial picture of HMO distribution across the city.
Street-level evidence illustrates the issue
The effect of the omission can be seen clearly at street level: the council licensing register records no HMOs on Collier Road, yet GRARA’s combined dataset identifies 17 ARU properties on the same street, all operating under the Student Accommodation Code and therefore exempt from licensing.
Whether the relevant threshold is 10%, 20% or any other figure, concentration analysis depends upon identifying all HMOs within a street or neighbourhood. Where a substantial category of HMOs is absent from the underlying dataset, measured concentrations will inevitably be lower than actual concentrations.
Other university cities have addressed this problem
Other university authorities have adopted broader approaches to monitoring HMO concentrations.
York combines licensed HMOs, student council tax exemption records, C4 and sui generis planning permissions, and properties identified through enforcement activity and site inspections. Its Supplementary Planning Document specifically recognises that council tax exemption records identify off-campus student accommodation that does not appear within licensing datasets.
Exeter similarly used student council tax exemption data to identify streets with high levels of student occupation when defining the boundaries of its Article 4 Direction.
Neither approach is discussed in the Greater Cambridge HMO Study, despite both addressing the same limitation created by licensing exemptions.
Differential treatment still requires complete evidence
The study draws on discussions with bursars from three Cambridge colleges and concludes that institutionally managed HMOs may justify a more nuanced planning approach from privately managed HMOs.
That is ultimately a policy judgement.
However, whichever policy approach is adopted, it remains necessary to identify every HMO contributing to concentrations within a neighbourhood.
A street containing 17 institutionally managed HMOs does not cease to be heavily concentrated simply because those properties are exempt from licensing. Excluding them from the evidence base does not alter the character of the street. It alters only the measurement.
Any concentration threshold is meaningful only if it is applied to a complete dataset.
Recommendations
Cambridge City Council should press on with Article 4 Directions, and as part of that, strengthen its evidence base by taking three practical steps.
Create a comprehensive HMO register. Combine the council’s HMO licensing register with student council tax exemption records, the National Code register, the Student Accommodation Code register, and records of properties with C4 or sui generis planning permission. This would create a single dataset covering both licensed and licensing-exempt HMOs, similar to the approach already used in York.
Repeat the spatial analysis using the complete dataset. Once institutionally managed HMOs are included, the mapping of concentrations, ward rankings and recommended Article 4 boundaries should be reviewed. Any future Article 4 Direction should be based on the fullest available picture of where HMOs are actually located.
Introduce an annual monitoring framework. Update the combined dataset each year using council tax student exemption records, licensing data, planning permissions and approved accommodation code registers. This would provide a transparent and consistent evidence base for monitoring changes in HMO concentrations over time and ensure planning policy keeps pace with changes in the city’s housing stock.
Conclusion
The Greater Cambridge HMO Study is a professionally prepared and valuable piece of work. However, the evidence assembled by GRARA suggests that an important category of off-campus shared student accommodation has not been incorporated into its principal spatial analysis.
That omission has the potential to affect the identification of HMO concentrations, the assessment of neighbourhood impacts and the geographic scope of any future Article 4 Direction.
GRARA has demonstrated that a more comprehensive evidence base can be assembled using publicly available information. Before adopting long-term planning policies that will shape Cambridge’s residential neighbourhoods for years to come, the council should ensure its decisions are informed by the most complete and accurate picture of HMO distribution that can reasonably be obtained.
Response prepared by the Guest Road Area Residents’ Association (GRARA), July 2026. Based exclusively on publicly accessible datasets and spatial analysis undertaken by GRARA.