“Taking into account the number of people who are on the waiting list for council houses in Harlow, is there a limit to the extent Harlow can build its way out of its present housing shortage?”

Housing is a basic element of any civilised society. I want Harlow’s next generation to have access to a decent home at a price they can afford.

But there are 5,500 families on our Council waiting list and a lot of people have simply not registered because the wait is so long. House prices have nearly trebled in the last twenty years so many first time buyers are also unable to get on the housing ladder. We also have an ageing and growing population with more people living alone. At the moment the increasing number of one person households accounts for 155,000 of the 223,000 rise in households each year and over a third of these are people over 65 living alone.

So we do need more new homes but it’s just as important that we get the mix and size of homes right as well as the number. If we don’t meet this challenge then it will lead only to increased inequality in our community.

But just building more homes without thinking about the impact won’t solve the problem. We do have to make best use of all the land that’s available and ensure all empty homes in the area are being used. These are issues which I press the Council on regularly.

Our district boundary is also tightly drawn around the town so we simply cannot accommodate all the homes that need to be built within our own district. And unless new homes are environmentally friendly, and are backed up by new schools, new GP surgeries and better transport links then the new build will cause just as many new problems as it solves old ones.

That’s why I support the Harlow North proposal which would concentrate development of new homes in one area rather than fragmenting it across the constituency. I think it’s the best solution available because a concentration of new homes will make it easier to deliver the investment needed for an A414/M11 northern by-pass to help tackle traffic congestion and the public service investment that will be needed for schools and NHS services.