News reaches me of moves at long last by Lib Dem led Oxford City Council to get more private sector landlords' properties licensed to ensure a basic decent standard:

BBC NEWS | England | Oxfordshire | Licence plan for more landlords:

There is a "widespread" problem of sub-standard conditions in rental properties across Oxford city, a councillor claims.

With more than 1,000 complaints last year Councillor Patrick Murray wants more residences licensed.

This is something I fought for not far shy of ten years ago now when I was on the council. In some predominantly student areas of other cities quality has been driven up by voluntary schemes run by organizations such as UNIPOL housing which we tried to whip up some enthusiasm for in Oxford ten years ago. But to little avail. And why should they - in some cities, students have a choice, and the difference between being licensed and not being licensed could be the ability to let your property at all. Here in Oxford the market is so tight it's nearly always a landlord's market.

Patrick knows, and I know, that there are some scummy shitholes out there that get in under the wire of compulsory licensing. If you want to provide boarding kennels for animals you've got to get them licensed. If you want to feed us kebabs at three in the morning you've got to get licensed. Yet if you want to house people, you can more or less do as you please. I've seen bare wires, broken bogs, even still some outside privies. And as to what passes as "furnished" the thought even for me, slob as I am, of sitting let alone sleeping on some of the fleabitten stuff turns my stomach. And in Oxford students often end up taking whatever they can get.

However, there is a market mechanism for achieving a similar outcome. Let's use Land Value Tax instead of Council Tax. Council Tax falls on the occupier. Land Value Tax on the owner. Council Tax combines the value of the location and the property to produce a taxable value, Land Value Tax just acknowledges the value of the location.

So a landlord offering a scuzzy shithole in an in demand location is going to have most of his income taken from him in tax unless he bucks his ideas up and produces a property which people are actually going to pay a premium over location value to rent. It would also prevent those landlords not renting out part of their properties to avoid the current compulsory system as they'd be losing out on income from the bit that is theirs, the property value, whilst still having to pay the tax on the location value.

Oh, and of course, it would promote the redevelopment of some sub-standard housing into dedicated single person housing more appropriate for the student and young professional market, taking some of the heat off family housing.