Sir,

The report into offices being converted into flats is another example of an incompetent Labour administration at Harlow Council.

1. They could have taken legal action far earlier so that anyone wanting to convert offices across the whole town would need to seek planning permission which would have given them much more control over the matter.

2. Harlow Council has been using this type of accommodation to house it’s own “homeless families”

3. The Harlow Alliance Party has been raising this issue for many months. We made a Freedom of Information request to find out what other Local Authorities were using accommodation to house “homeless families. This revealed that many were not advising Harlow Council, including 26 families from Lewisham and 2 from Southend. The officer can only write to other Councils if she knows that families from another area are notified to the Council.

4. Most of these conversions can only be sold to cash purchasers, as the mortgage sector will not give mortgages on the flats. As an example, 40 of the flats at Pearson House do not have external windows, who else but someone desperate for any sort of accommodation would want one of them. Developers are doing these conversions in the knowledge that Council will snap them up to house “homeless” families.

5. The Council seemed to think that bringing hundreds of new homes(flats) into the town centre would help with it’s regeneration. What is happening now does not bode well for the future.

6. Virtually all of these households will include one or more children. They can be sent here with little or no notice, the consequence is now being felt at schools and doctors surgeries amongst other services.

7. Non of these occupants will call Harlow home, in due course all will return from where they came from, to be replaced by other families and so the problem is long term.

Nicholas Taylor
Candidate for the Harlow Alliance Party
Bush Fair ward

Note: Full list of candidates can be found on our politics page.