Hounslow Council's Housing and Environment Scrutiny Panel convened on Wednesday to address how gaps in land ownership data are hampering effective enforcement in the borough.
The lack of clarity around land ownership has specifically hampered the council's ability to take effective enforcement actions. The panel, chaired by Councillor Hina Mir, heard that the council no longer uses land registry data due to the associated fees, relying instead on free datasets.
The issue of land ownership was previously discussed at the panel's meeting on 18 June 2025. Joe Sanders-Wilde presented background data and context, explaining that members had identified a lack of clarity around land ownership
during a Scrutiny in a day session.
During the previous meeting, queries were raised about whether the topic of land ownership should be dealt with by scrutiny. A vote was held, with four members voting in favour, two against, and two abstaining. Despite these disagreements, members voted to proceed with a deep dive into the topic. Steven Forbes agreed to discuss the procedure with the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) to resolve the disagreements.
The agenda for the meeting included a presentation on land ownership in Hounslow by Sabeel Khan, Assistant Director for Traffic, Transport, and Parking, and Lorien Kelly, Head of Regulatory Services in Environmental Services.
The panel also reviewed the minutes from the 18 June 2025 meeting, where Vid Calovski provided an overview of how the Scrutiny Panel operates. It was agreed that previous recommendations should be included in the minutes, which Mr. Calovski agreed to complete. The minutes from the previous meeting were agreed as a correct record.
Panel members include Councillors Joanna Biddolph, Vickram Grewal, Afzaal Kiani, Karamat Malik, Max Mosley, Aftab Siddiqui, and Emma Yates. Councillor Yates was nominated as vice-chair of the panel.