Sorry to bring doom and gloom, but my prediction that once established in Newham, selective licensing would spread like Japanese knotweed across East London is coming true. London boroughs of Islington and Hackney are both conducting reviews of the private rented sector and both held meetings this week at which the NLA were invited to present evidence on the future of the PRS in London.

I attended the Islington meeting and Chief Executive Officer, Richard Lambert, attended the meeting in Hackney. Both are seriously considering the possibility of selective licensing where every rented property in a given area - which could be the whole borough - would have to be licensed. At the Islington meeting, Shelter and Crisis said that they both supported licensing. I was impressed by questions from councillors sitting on the committee, they did seem willing to weigh-up the arguments and officers present were advising caution. Islington has some great schemes for landlords and run a regular landlord forum and I have generally viewed them as a cooperative and helpful borough in which to be a decent landlord. So fingers crossed.

A similar commission in Hackney has also received submissions from Crisis, Shelter and DIGS. I understand that members of the commission have been expressing enthusiasm about licensing as a way of controlling landlords and driving up standards. I had put Hackney in a similarly sensible category as Islington, hoping that they would not plump for licensing. Somebody needs to remind councillors that selective licensing is intended to deal - as a last resort - with anti-social behaviour and low housing demand. Local authorities already have extensive powers of enforcement to deal with rogue and criminal landlords.