Should Cambridge introduce stricter planning controls on houses in multiple occupation?

Cambridge's referendum on tightening planning rules for houses in multiple occupation closed with a comfortable if not overwhelming win for Yes, 15 votes to 8, a 30-point margin from 23 profiled voters. That is a solid majority rather than a rout, and it rests on a chamber too small to be read as the city's settled view.

The real story sits in the 25-34 bracket, the only age group with enough votes to trust, where opinion split 5-6 against restriction — the sole cohort to tilt No while every other visible group, from teenagers to pensioners, broke unanimously or near-unanimously for tighter controls. That is the age most likely to be renting in an HMO rather than living next to one, and the divide reads less like generational politics than like landlord-versus-tenant, or renter-versus-homeowner, drawn along the fault line the campaigners themselves invoked: an affordability gap that pushes the middle out of ownership.

Gender told a milder version of the same story, with women backing restriction more strongly (78%) than men (54%), whose vote was close to a coin toss. Together the splits suggest support for cracking down on HMOs is broadest among those furthest from needing one to afford to live in Cambridge at all.

The house always fills up faster than the objections do.