Another planning application to convert house into children’s home
News / Tue 29th Jul 2025 at 09:16am
A PLANNING application to convert a house into a children’s home has been submitted to Harlow Council.
The application is in relation to 37 Upper Stoneyfield Harlow Essex CM19 4BD.
The applicant is Sophie Onediege of 2United Ltd.
The application states:
2UNITED Ltd aims to provide high-quality supported accommodation primarily through solo placement, believing this approach maximises tailored support and outcomes for vulnerable young people.
However, we recognise that there are instances where keeping siblings together is in their best interest.
As such, our model allows for the placement of up to two children, particularly where the local authority requests to place two children from the same family in the interest of continuity and emotional wellbeing.
For more details, go to Harlow Council’s planning portal and look for HW/LDCP/25/00309
David Forman
2025-07-29 09:48:08
The person running this company is records their occupation as Social Worker at Companies House. Fortunately, on this case she appears in Social Work England register. However, the neighbours in Upper Stoneyfield should be concerned at the nature of business activities listed at Companies House: "Residential care activities for learning difficulties, mental health and substance abuse." What is interesting is that the lady running 2UNITEDLTD hasn't filed any accounts under this name. This is because the company was previously called JJ Sweet and Caring Limited from October 2020 until February 2025. However, JJ Sweet and Caring Limited failed to trade because it repeatedly filed dormant accounts. The registered office is 37 Upper Stoneyfield which shows a tiny business outfit. Should we be trusting children's care to such companies with limited track record? However it is worth pointing out that Mrs Sophie Ngono Ondiege has been registered as a social worker since September 2021 and previous to that listed her occupation as carer at Companies House. See Companies House listing at https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12940167/filing-history
David Forman
2025-07-29 11:30:49
The privatised children's care market has been acknowledged by the Department of Education as leaving at least 1000 children at risk of harm in a report published November last year. On page 23 it says: "Despite it being a local authority’s duty to ensure that they have sufficient, registered places for children to live, local authorities' reliance on private providers means they have a limited ability to shape their local market. The lack of appropriate and affordable homes in the right places for children means that we are seeing a worrying trend in the rise of the use of unregistered provision - most notably in children’s homes and supported accommodation, but Ofsted have also seen it in independent fostering agencies and residential family centres. Often these settings are wholly inappropriate places for vulnerable children to live in, and sometimes children are living there for extended periods of time. In 2023-24 Ofsted opened cases on 1,109 potentially unregistered settings and found that 887 (87%) should have been registered (compared to 370 in 2022-23). We suspect there are more unregistered settings operating than Ofsted have received intelligence about, but at a minimum this shows that nearly 1000 children were placed in unregistered settings in 2023/24 alone." See report at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67375fe5ed0fc07b53499a42/Keeping_Children_Safe__Helping_Families_Thrive_.pdf
Seamus
2025-07-29 13:47:05
Their own website shows they have just three properties and they are all in Harlow. One of those appears to be the house in the planning application citing two child bedrooms and one bedroom which has been turned into a staff room. If they are already operating as a child carer service, why would they need to apply to planning? This looks like they have been running a care facility but without the correct permission since 2020 and appears to be a retro application to gain a licence that they should have had, is this so? A point of note, the company address is the very same house now seeking planning changes and there is no company telephone number on their company website
John
2025-07-31 06:48:34
i feels sorry for any vulnerable kids that end up in these places. Also many child refugees end up in these places which are probably not the best way to support. In 2002 they were making 9000 a month for one room. Can only imagine how much they get now. Perhaps explains why so many keen to open them. Huge demand and huge rewards. I thought things were better these days but doesn't seem like it
Michelle Koubaa
2025-07-31 12:05:57
Why are people so negative about children's homes & HMO,s and why have the council bought the office blocks being used as affordable studios to replace with unaffordable family homes . There's many people who cannot get social housing or afford private rental flats . Harlow has many childless couples , single people for whom those homes were affordable. Will the council help us NO not even with a dosabilty . And vunerable children also need homes. Harlow council building luxury homes for the wealthy or just social homes for a small minority. It's social cleansing at its finest !
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