London council looks to reintroduce selective licensing

My email to Ms Hale having been a Croydon Landlord
Dear Ms Hale
Thankfully I am no longer a Croydon PRS landlord, having sold my albeit small portfolio of Croydon rental property.
I had only ever rented well maintained and decorated homes to those on Housing Benefit, as believe people should have somewhere to call "home", but received abysmal assistance from Croydon with a landlord/tenant matter, suffering not only withholding of rent but threats and abuse from the tenant.
It would be a very retrograde step for Croydon to consider re-implementing a Landlord Licensing Scheme. It would be a final nail in the Croydon PRS coffin and encourage more good quality landlords to vacate the sector. Hardly likely too that Croydon Council are in any better place to administer a new scheme any more than they were under the old Landlord Licensing Scheme.
Whilst Croydon had raised £22million, according to the Council’s 2019-2020 accounts, auditors Grant Thornton were unable to say with any certainty how that money had been spent. There were well-placed doubts that it had been spent on the Borough’s PRS as had been the original intention and original literature that the Scheme was to help both tenants and landlords. Indeed, the failures in the implementation of the original licensing scheme were among the reasons given by Jenrick for refusing to renew it.
My personal experience of the failure of Croydon's Landlord Licensing Scheme was being told, in person, that "the Council did not help Landlords only Tenants", contrary to all the Scheme's original literature and documentation. It took a seriously made threat of breach of contract for someone in housing to come and discuss the very real problems I was having with a tenant. She had written she was not renewing her tenancy and wished to move out, a relief to me, yet on the day of the arranged checkout had been told by Croydon Council not to vacate.
The Renters Rights Bill, which says it all, and the continual landlord bashing by Governments and tenant organisations has already seen just over 50% of PRS landlords vacating the sector.
Much of Croydon's PRS housing stock is old pre 1930's and many are conversions, not easy or cheap to upgrade - £15,000 work to save tenants approx £280pa on their energy bill is not realistic. Rents will rise to cover these works and increase again if a Licencing Scheme is re-introduced.
Additionally (1) the application of ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the PRS, when Council and Housing Associations properties only have to investigate and report on health and safety issues within 14 days but not rectify, will see more good landlords leave the sector.
(2) Mould, from previous experience, is usually down to lifestyle as your own Environmental Health dept have admitted, and stated nothing that a landlord or LA can address as against a tenants “human rights” to be told how a person should live their lives.
Croydon and Local Authorities would not be experiencing an increasing PRS lack of homes IF the service Landlords, providing much needed accommodation, had been worked with and not worked against by Local Authorities, Governments and Tenant organisations such as Shelter etc.

Croydon is the only council in the country to have gone bankrupt 3 times.
Each time taxpayers have had to bail it out so the purpose of the selective licencing scheme is not to protect tenants and responsible landlords but to fill the depleted coffers of a financially challenged local authority.