Havering Council votes for housing plan and school expansions

Councillors have agreed to release £83million to provide affordable housing in the borough, expand at least five primary schools to ease the shortage of school places and pledged to ensure more work opportunities for adults with autism in last night’s full council meeting.

Havering Council agreed to fund a housing plan to build 526 council houses in the next three years, alongside a long-term plan to deliver 1,000 homes over the next decade.

Councillors also agreed to expand St Peter’s Catholic Primary, Dorset Avenue, Romford, Crownfield Infants’ School, White Hart Lane, Rush Green, the James Oglethorpe Primary School, Ashvale Gardens, Upminster, and Broadford Primary, Faringdon Avenue, Harold Hill, despite the fact the proposal was called-in by Cllr David Durant and Keith Darvill for further scrutiny.

On Tuesday, the overview and scrutiny board decided not to refer the plan to expand the five primary schools back to cabinet and the proposal was put forward to the full council.

The decisions were made without a debate or a vote taking place but councillors agreed the proposals should be passed.

The council also passed a motion to ensure more adults with autism find work in the borough before the end of 2016 and to lobby the government to provide more opportunities for people with autism to integrate the workplace.

At the beginning of the meeting, Havering Mayor Cllr Brian Eagling paid tributes to former councillors Ian Wilkes and Leslie Mills, Father Sean Shiels of Corpus Christi Church, Collier Row, Arthur Rackley, Pearly King of Upminster, who died recently, and to the victims of the Paris attacks.

Councillors who wanted to speak were able to do so and two minutes of silence were observed.

Read the full report of Havering Council’s meeting in tomorrow’s Recorder.