Preston is consulting on a selective licensing scheme for privately rented homes. Preston City Council opened the consultation on 27 July 2026 and it runs to 11 October 2026. The plan covers three areas close to the centre, the City Centre, St Matthew’s and Plungington, and inside them almost every privately rented house would need a licence, not just shared houses. The proposed fee is £1,050 for a five year licence. Nothing is in force yet, and the council will decide once the consultation closes. The exact streets, the fee and whether the scheme has started are on Preston City Council’s selective licensing page. Larger shared houses of five or more people already need a mandatory HMO licence, wherever they are.
A selective licence would carry fire safety conditions, such as a smoke alarm on every storey. Those are housing conditions. They would not produce the fire risk assessment, which is a separate legal duty under fire safety law that applies right now, in every let HMO, business premises and building with shared parts, whether or not the scheme ever starts.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service enforces fire safety law across Preston, separately from the council. They can inspect without notice, serve enforcement and prohibition notices, and prosecute. They will not write the assessment, though they will give advice. When they audit a building they ask to see the written assessment and check that its measures are actually there.
Terraces around the university
The three areas in the licensing plan are the reason the council picked them: dense Victorian terraces close to the centre and to the University of Central Lancashire, a lot of it let room by room to students and young workers. St Matthew’s, Plungington and the streets off Fylde Road have one of the highest concentrations of shared houses in the city. In houses like these the assessment turns on the fire separation between rooms and floors, the escape past a single staircase, and older wiring and heating. Nearer Avenham and Deepdale there are larger Victorian houses split into flats, where the shared staircase and the flat entrance doors are the question. A house let room by room is a very different job from a family let, and the smoke alarm a licence would ask for is where the assessment starts, not where it finishes.
The council has been clear about why it chose these three areas: they hold some of the worst private housing conditions in the city, and the density of shared student lets around the university is part of the reason. Selective licensing is a housing tool, and the fire risk in a street of shared houses does not wait for it to arrive.
What a Preston report should actually name
A report that could have been written for any town is not suitable and sufficient for a student terrace off Fylde Road or a large house split into flats. It should say where the alarms sit on each storey, whether the staircase stays usable if a fire starts on the ground floor, and how the rooms and flats are separated. For a converted house it should deal with the fire doors and the escape, not leave the shared parts as a heading with nothing under it.
Checking an assessor in Preston
No official register of fire risk assessors exists, so vetting one falls to whoever pays the invoice. Ask about qualifications, professional body membership, indemnity insurance and a recent sample report before you appoint. The questions to ask are on what a fire risk assessment costs.
What it costs in Preston
The building sets the price, not the postcode. A two up two down let in Plungington is a morning; a large house split into several flats with one staircase is not, and anything over 11 metres brings the fixed fire door checks with it. The national ranges, and what moves a quote inside them, are on what a fire risk assessment costs. Ask for a fixed price against a written description of the property.
Blackpool is the other Lancashire town on this site: fire risk assessments in Blackpool.
Selective licensing in Preston
Is the selective licence something I have to get now?
Not yet. It is at the consultation stage for the City Centre, St Matthew’s and Plungington, and the council has not made a final decision. Check the council page for the current position.
Would the licence replace the fire risk assessment?
No. Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service expects the written assessment now, and a licence condition about smoke alarms would not provide one.
My property is outside those three areas. Do I need to do anything?
The selective scheme would not reach you, but the fire risk assessment still applies to any let property with shared parts, and a five person share still needs an HMO licence.
Getting a quote from an assessor covering Preston
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Preston. Say whether it is a single house, a house split into lettings, or a five person HMO.
Not in Preston? See all the areas we cover.