diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 9bfe145..6e68a86 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -101,6 +101,6 @@
 0.5.3:
 
     * Implemented scandir in listdir if available
-
+    * Fix for issue where local.getpreferredencoding returns empty string
 
 
diff --git a/fs/__init__.py b/fs/__init__.py
index c250eac..2ddb779 100644
--- a/fs/__init__.py
+++ b/fs/__init__.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 
 """
 
-__version__ = "0.5.3a0"
+__version__ = "0.5.4a1"
 __author__ = "Will McGugan (will@willmcgugan.com)"
 
 #  provide these by default so people can use 'fs.path.basename' etc.
diff --git a/fs/iotools.py b/fs/iotools.py
index bf91ec3..75197ec 100644
--- a/fs/iotools.py
+++ b/fs/iotools.py
@@ -160,7 +160,7 @@ def make_stream(name,
 
     if not binary:
         io_object = io.TextIOWrapper(io_object,
-                                     encoding=encoding,
+                                     encoding=encoding or 'utf-8',
                                      errors=errors,
                                      newline=newline,
                                      line_buffering=line_buffering,)
@@ -170,7 +170,7 @@ def make_stream(name,
 
 def decode_binary(data, encoding=None, errors=None, newline=None):
     """Decode bytes as though read from a text file"""
-    return io.TextIOWrapper(io.BytesIO(data), encoding=encoding, errors=errors, newline=newline).read()
+    return io.TextIOWrapper(io.BytesIO(data), encoding=encoding or 'utf-8', errors=errors, newline=newline).read()
 
 
 def make_bytes_io(data, encoding=None, errors=None):
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index f9864cc..aafbf67 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 import sys
 PY3 = sys.version_info >= (3,)
 
-VERSION = "0.5.3a0"
+VERSION = "0.5.4a1"
 
 COMMANDS = ['fscat',
             'fsinfo',