Councillor’s ‘Sofa Saga’-Whatever Happened To One Stop Shops?

News From St Alban’s Ward Councillor Jane Keane.

Most of my residents take a keen interest in their neighbourhoods. And they let me know what is bothering them. So when on 7 July a resident told me about a sofa on the street where they live I promptly visited the property in Princes Road. It was evening time. I took photographs of a large three-piece suite obstructing the path leading to the communal bins provided for flats no 66-73 Princes Road. There was also one shopping trolley abandoned near another front door.  

I made a report using the Council’s new CaseTracker system and asked the Council’s case workers to contact the Council’s Enforcement Team and also see whether the London Fire Brigade (LBF) might visit to check that all was well inside the building. In response to my report I was told on 14 July that the Council’s enforcement team had visited, and would contact the Landlord. I visited the site again, in the evening, there was more furniture, a mountain of bin bags in the open bin store and another shopping trolley. I decided to by-pass the case tracker system and on the same day contacted the Council’s departments direct.

On Monday morning  21 July 2025, I received another email from my good citizen, concerned that the sofa was still there. He had contacted the LFB himself.  After ringing the LFB to amplify his concerns, I re-visited the property and this time was able to establish that the Landlords for the block are J Nicholson and Son. I made a phone call on site. The Company’s agent has now raised an order and I hope that the sofa and waste will be removed. But I was disappointed to learn that at least one resident had been reporting their concerns about the waste management for some time. I will be following up my phone call with J Nicholson and Son and hope that a better permanent arrangement for the waste will be made.

The real culprits in this are the residents who fly-tipped as the council has a bulk waste service and the costs of clearing up their waste will fall, very unfairly on their neighbours in the flats. 

But that doesn’t let the Landlord or Council totally off the hook. Good management of the property would have picked this issue up. The company say they were unaware of the problem. A resident there showed me several photographs and emails highlighting a long term problem. They should have had a positive response.

It is also dismal state of affairs when neighbours and a councillor are reduced to making weekly phone calls and site visits to deal with one issue already known to the Landlord.  I am not convinced either of the virtue of the Council’s new Case Tracker system which defines what the council will get involved in,  really narrowly, even though the Council’s fingers are all over the issues which are raised with me in the ward. 

Councils and organisations once prided themselves with being one stop shops. What ever happened to that notion I don’t know, but we need to get back to it as a principle for good customer care otherwise I foresee many other “Sofa Sagas” and that it not good for Havering residents.

Councillor Keane and the awful fly tipping.

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