Your West Hampstead and Fortune Green councillors were told before the summer holidays that the Council offices at West End Lane, home to the Hampstead housing service or "District Housing Office", was scheduled to close on 28 September. We've been holding our advice surgeries there for several years, so we had to look for a new home, and you can now find us at West Hampstead library every Friday evening between 6 and 7.
So I was curious when various Camden Council tenants I mentioned the closure of 156 West End Lane to expressed great surprise and said it was the first they had heard of it. I asked the Council what was going on and got a nasty surprise...
It turns out that back in July Camden's housing department was supposed to be writing to all their tenants in the Hampstead district (which includes West Hampstead and Kilburn) to tell them about the closure and new arrangments.
I queried whether the letters had actually been sent. The housing department has written to me confessing that "it now appears that due to an administrative error the letters were not posted. We will now arrange for the letters to be sent out first class tomorrow."
What a mess! And what a waste of money! There's even talk of postponing the closure as the users have had such little notice.
Again and again, I get the distinct impression that standards in Camden are on the slide, and this is yet another example of that.
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