Harlow Labour question council over delays to re-letting homes

News / Sun 14th Jul 2024 at 09:33am

HARLOW Labour has questioned the ruling Conservative group on the council over the delays in re-letting council properties in the town.

The question was asked by Bush Fair councillor Kay Morrison.

Film is below.

4 Comments for Harlow Labour question council over delays to re-letting homes:

JR

2024-07-14 15:21:35

Dan swords you are talking a load of lies. You are trying to cover your own back side. Truth is you are doing nothing in turning these properties around neither are you giving people another option of a place if they turn them down because they are either not suitable or in a state of disrepair or mold. You get one option only then you slide back down to bottom of housing list. Refusal are because of the state of the reletting. All you have done is Eth this erh that & pass the buck to portfolio. I have lived in a council house & the option of one & only one has been in for a long time. Complaint are not looked into & always we are told that they up upheld every time meaning " you do not deal with them" which means you are not prepared to listen or take into account & resolve so another lie there. The quicker you go with your "erms" & your hard hat & someone who is a dam site more intelligent comes into this position of council leader to take tenants & everything else forward the better it will be for Harlow and the people. You are not old enough or wise enough to know this town, about this town, or what the people want. Harlow council need a good wake up call & certainly so does HTS.

Nicholas Taylor

2024-07-14 15:49:43

It is good to see that Labour are taking a leaf out of Harlow Alliance, this was a subject I raised at the hustings held before the recent local elections. As a former housing manager at Harlow Council for some 30 years I know that once again Cllr Swords is using smoke and mirrors when addressing this issue. Between 1980 and 2000 I would guess that changes to the way that empty homes were re-let was the subject of review at least four times. These were of course before he was even born so he has no insight to the areas looked at and the changes that were made. As I said at the hustings, conservative boasts about reducing the time to re-let homes from 38 days to 20 were hollow ones, bearing in mind that during the period 2010 to 2020 it was just 16 days. These average delays have come under the Conservatives watch and bearing in mind that the council use a choice based system of allocation they should be in the teens. I suspect that there is not enough scrutiny of all the services being provided by HTS by council officers. There is far more to this subject that can be said on these pages. Nicholas Taylor, Leader of Harlow Alliance.

Seamus

2024-07-14 17:21:16

Worth remembering that when people are on the housing list, Social housing through housing associations, are also included in the properties they can bid on. I've seen multiple housing associations take upto a year to ready properties for habitation. Perhaps the council can be more proactive in nudging housing associations to get their finger out?