At their best, house shares can be a more efficient use of a house than single occupancy (potentially
reducing carbon emissions per person), can lead to lower heating and food bills for individuals, can enable
people to live whether they otherwise could not afford to, and can provide a range of social benefits.
However, currently HMOs are often sub-standard housing, poorly adapted to multiple occupancy, with
gardens frequently removed to accommodate parking and bins. Rather than carrying forward existing policy,
we call for a review of its successes and failures to inform a revised policy.