Keep open the Soho and Covent Garden Housing Office

The Consultation period has been extended until 19th October. We received this update from City West Homes:

"Thank you for writing to us with a petition and your concerns about proposals to relocate the Soho/Covent Garden and Marylebone teams from the Soho office on Broadwick Street to the Central Area Service Centre on Lisson Green.

The consultation period has been extended until Wednesday 19 October 2016 to give residents sufficient time to register their views. A drop in surgery has been arranged to take place on Monday 10 October 2016 between 4.30pm — 6.30pm for residents to discuss the proposals and to provide feedback. Leon Williams, Area Manager and Maria Gillies, Head of Operations will be available during the surgery."

A resident comments
"With regard to the closure of our Soho Estate Office, I was reminded by another resident yesterday evening that the premises concerned were designated many years ago as being solely for community use. For many years they housed the Charles Norton centre for the elderly, (a great loss to the area when it closed) where elderly residents in the area could join in social activities, have lunch, etc. After its closure the premises housed a nursery, again for the children of the area's residents. Only when WCC decided that the offices in Kemp House where the Estate Office and a Social Services centre had been housed were too valuable not to be used for something else did the Estate Office move in. I suppose it just about slipped in under the wire of the designation. Can premises so designated simply be turned over to commercial use?"

Clair Malone who lives in Kemp House and has relied on the estate office for many years due to a disability has written a blog about the proposed closure of the office.
http://clairmalone.co.uk/2016/09/27/soho-covent-garden-marylebone-housing-estate-office/