In a regulatory notice published on 20 April 2023, the Regulator of Social Housing concluded that the London Borough of Harrow has breached the Home Standard and, as a result, there was the potential for serious detriment to tenants.
Following a referral from a tenant, the regulator investigated the London Borough of Harrow and found that it had failed to meet statutory health and safety requirements for electrical and water safety. The council had not completed electrical safety reports for 3,500 homes, and had not completed water risk assessments for every site requiring a re-inspection.
In agreement with the regulator, the council has put a plan in place to address these issues.
Kate Dodsworth, Director of Consumer Regulation at RSH, said:”We investigated the London Borough of Harrow after a tenant referred the case to us, and found that the council has breached our standards and put tenants at potential risk. The council needs to address the issues that led to this situation, and we will monitor it closely as it puts things right for tenants.”
A joint statement from Harrow Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Mina Parmar and Dipti Patel Corporate Director of Place, said “All families deserve to live in well-maintained homes that are safe and warm. We are very sorry that the council has failed to deliver the quality of service that our tenants should expect in their homes. We are determined to address this quickly and have already taken action to change this.”

A widely circulated and supported change.org petition asks the Harrow East MP Blackman to apologise to the UK Sikhs for labelling supporters of a Sikh Homeland as terrorists.
“On 23 March 2023, the Conservative MP for Harrow East Bob Blackman went on a tirade in the Commons by labelling followers for a Sikh homeland, Khalistan, of being hooligans, to Militants to terrorists within a space of 92 seconds” informs the petition.
“Scottish people, some of which who campaign for an Independent Scotland, or indeed the people of Ukraine, would be outraged if they were labelled with such rhetoric” points out the petition.
“Sikh people around the world are clearly emotional on the unlawful abduction of Sikh preacher Bhai Amritpal Singh of Punjab – on instruction by the Indian State” claims the petition.
The Sikh community has been widely highlighting their sufferings in India, including several protests in Britain, latest was at the Parliament Square on 25 the March 2023.

Protestors leaflet informs Indian government’s ‘draconian’ measures in Punjab in the form of “internet shutdown, search operations, police blockades, and deployment of paramilitary troops to have a prominent Sikh leader Amritpal Singh arrested and silenced”.
Blackman, who has seemingly calculated his votes and is known to exploit Gujarati nationalism for votes in Harrow, is a strong supporter of the divisive Indian prime minister Narendra Modi of the Gujarati background despite serious violations of human rights in India under his watch.
The Modi government has been notoriously thin-skinned about international criticism. Among those rebuked for speaking out are Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, and the singer Rihanna, who both expressed support for farmers protesting against Modi’s policies and who were subsequently the subject of a damning foreign ministry statement.
Sikh farmers played a major part in crushing the Modi government into repealing the then “3 New Farming Laws”.
Since Modi was elected in 2014, his right-wing Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government has pursued Hindu-centric policies that are moving India away from its secular foundations. A recent House of Commons research briefing informs about the ‘Persecution of Christians and religious minorities in India’.
Human Rights Watch, in its 2019 report on India, claimed that “the government failed to properly enforce Supreme Court directives to prevent and investigate mob attacks, often led by BJP supporters, on religious minorities and other vulnerable communities”.
Despite all this and that harmoniously diverse Harrow could do well without such right-wing activities to divide the local community, Blackman plays the Modi card for political gain all the time: like, he defended Modi after a recent two parts BBC documentary India: the Modi Question that obtained access to a previously unseen and confidential UK government report produced after the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat. The report found Modi responsible for the violence and described it as having the “hallmarks of ethnic cleansing”.
Many say Blackman is the most divisive MP that Harrow has ever seen.

To help clear up London’s air, the ULEZ is expanding from 29 August 2023 across all London boroughs, including Harrow.
The ULEZ is applied to cars, motorcycles, vans and specialist vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes) and minibuses (up to and including 5 tonnes).
If the vehicle doesn’t meet the ULEZ emission standards and isn’t exempt, a daily charge £12.50 is applied if driven inside the zone.
Most petrol vehicles under 16 years old or diesel vehicles under 6 years old already meet the emissions standards.
To monitor the implementation of the ULEZ, the TfL (Traffic for London) has started installing cameras, including in Harrow.
But Cllr Paul Osborn, leader of Harrow Council, seemingly under pressure, said: “We have not given permission for TfL to put up ULEZ cameras in Harrow, and have refused to cooperate with TfL in their installation. Part of our legal challenge against ULEZ expansion is to have the cameras removed. To date, we understand that the cameras have been installed on traffic lights, which are owned by TfL”.
Out of 32 London boroughs, Harrow is one of the five Conservative held London councils – Bexley, Bromley, Harrow and Hillingdon along with Surrey County Council – that is gone for a judicial review challenging the ULEZ expansion (eventually the judicial review was not successful, and £150,000 taxpayers money wasted).
The Judicial Review launched by the Conservative controlled London boroughs seems to be the revolt instigated by a Harrow Councillor Susan Hall who sits in the London assembly leading the GLA Conservatives group, gives a sense to have a needle for Sadiq Khan and misses no opportunity to attack him!!
Many big cities have ULEZ, including Birmingham and Glasgow, but of course don’t have a reason for the London like Tory led revolt against such an air clear up initiative.
[The Tory revolt against the ULEZ, London Mayor initiative, was apparently instigated by the Harrow Councillor Susan Hall, who at the time led the GLA Conservatives group and is in the habit of calling Mayor Khan “a disgrace”. Cllr Hall is well known for causing political chaos and confusion in Harrow!
Later, she stepped down from the post to stand as the Tory candidate in the London Mayor election 2024 but was badly rejected by Londoners]

At the Council meeting on 23 February, the Conservative council administration confirmed that they will be increasing council tax by nearly 5% this year and 12% over three years, breaking an election promise to freeze council tax.
Leader of the council, Councillor Paul Osborn, later said: “Deciding where to invest and where to make savings is very challenging. We’ve taken the tough decisions that allow us to invest in your priorities and at the same time make sure the council lives ­­within its means”.
The expectation was to make the financial decisions to deal with the cost of living crisis effecting Harrow with a local budget that could have made a difference to the lives of all those that have suffered under 13 years of austerity, the Covid-19 pandemic and a decline in real wages.
The Labour opposition points out that “Harrow Conservatives vote through ‘Dangerous’ Budget Cuts to Social Care (£7,452,000), whilst Breaking Election Promises on Council Tax”.
“Harrow Conservative Councillors have dealt a huge slap in the face to Harrow residents by breaking a key election pledge to freeze council tax, only to now increase the financial burden by 12% when the Borough is facing a cost-of-living crisis” the leader of the Labour group, Councillor David Perry said.
“I am deeply concerned that these savage cuts to vital support for our most at risk vulnerable adults and children in Harrow will badly impact service users and their families. The Harrow Conservatives have decided to invest nearly £250k in more PR, Spin Doctors and political messaging at the Council whilst at the same time cutting huge numbers of social care workers demonstrates they have the wrong priorities at the wrong time” Cllr Perry said.

Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow East, announces the formation of ‘all party parliamentary group of British Gujaratis’ (APPG) in the UK parliament’.
“The APPG will provide the Gujarati community with an opportunity to engage with politicians on matters such as health and wellbeing, education, social and cultural needs, immigration, bilateral trade with the state of Gujarat in India, and economic development in the UK” said the co-chair of the group Gareth Thomas (Lab). The other co-chair of the group is Harrow East MP Blackman (Con)!
The REACH (Race, Ethnicity And Culture Heritage) India, fostering a positive image of India, was quick to point out the divisive nature of the vote-grabbing initiative:

Moreover, contrary to what the APPG suggests, the Gujarati community in India or in the UK is not made up of Hindus only.
In trying to justify why the Gujaratis need specific representation, Thomas press release highlights that the Gujaratis are well established in the UK – they became doctors, accountants, solicitors, pharmacists, engineers etc’and that ‘there is hardly any sector, which has been untouched by the Gujarati community’.
Wonder if non-Gujaratis like Rishi Sunak (PM) or Suella Braverman (Home Secretory) would need specific representation because of their treatment for being who they are?
Interesting that political opportunism has no political divide line, and in hunting for the same ground, red merges to blue in exploiting Gujarati nationalism for political gains.
Such are the harmonious relationships between a Harrow Labour MP and a Tory MP that they have calculated their votes, and Harrow East and West territories are well-marked with apparent cosy arrangements whereby Tories don’t put a strong candidate in Harrow West, and the Labour do the same in Harrow East, as the outcome of the selection for Labour parliamentary candidate for Harrow East would confirm this Saturday!

Harrow council planning regime is working on a policy document regarding the height of buildings in suburban areas – the areas which are not as densely populated as an inner city, yet more densely populated than a rural area in the countryside.
The tall building Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), in the draft formation and consultation stage, provides guidance on what contextually tall buildings mean in relation to existing building heights in suburban areas.
The SDP would help in deciding the planning applications by considering the ‘context’ and contextuality of the tall buildings applied for.
Councillor Marilyn Ashton, Cabinet Member for Planning and Regeneration, said the SDP would help protect the character of Harrow suburbs.
“People come to live in Harrow because of its Metroland, 1930s leafy areas, and they want to see that character retained” she said.
[“1930s leafy areas” characteristics of Harrow have changed over the time as are the communities expectations, living pattern and needs. The planning and regeneration policies should meaningfully reflect this change.
Between the last two censuses (held in 2011 and 2021), the population of Harrow increased by 9.3%, from just under 239,100 in 2011 to around 261,200 in 2021.
In 2021, Harrow was home to around 37.0 people per football pitch-sized piece of land, compared with 33.8 in 2011.
Harrow saw England’s joint largest percentage-point fall in the proportion of households that owned their home (from 65.3% in 2011 to 58.8% in 2021).
In 2021, 45.2% of people in Harrow identified their ethnic group within the “Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh” category (compared with 42.6% in 2011), while 36.5% identified their ethnic group within the “White” category (compared with 42.2% in the previous decade]
Harrow’s built heritage is principally found in clusters around its medieval town centres and historic landscapes. Early settlements such as Pinner, Stanmore and Harrow on the Hill are already protected by Conservation Areas with many Statutory Listed Buildings.
The SDP defines a ‘contextually tall’ building as being equal to or greater than twice that of the prevailing height of an area.
The politics of using the ‘context’ and ‘contextuality’ of the tall buildings is likely to create a two tier system of the tall buildings in the borough in the less (mostly Conservative) or more (mostly Labour) deprived areas.
The less posh areas like the Greenhill and Marlborough wards that already have tall buildings could have more tall buildings, while the posh areas like Pinner, Hatch End and Stanmore would not.
The SDP by insisting on the context of the tall buildings according to the specific areas, primarily protecting the posh suburban parts of the borough and therefore implicitly preserving their socio-cultural, class and political make-up, mostly Conservative, is concerning as whatever is built on a problematic base, is going to be problematic!
Moreover, the lack of a unified approach to the tall buildings across the borough is at odds with the spirit of the equal opportunities and Harrow’s Core Strategy.
As a good practice, the planning and regeneration policies should enhance and not damage the socio-political cohesion, harmony and continuity across the borough.

London’s mayor Sadiq Khan’s announced £130m scheme to give every primary school pupil in London free school meals for the next academic year, includes Harrow children.
Harrow has seen a growing number of children living in poverty, where over 18,000 children living in poverty. There are serious concerns about the profound and devastating consequences of food insecurity on the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of the residents.
According to the Action for Children report this year, 9597 (43.1%) of Harrow East and 7939 (33.2%) of Harrow West children were in poverty in 2020/21.
Other social deprivation input indicators include that around 58,230 people living in poverty in private households in Harrow as of March 2021 as estimated by the Office for National Statistics, and that 23.5% of residents were estimated to be earning below the Living Wage in 2021.
The total number of “violent crime” in Harrow is 11.5k, and this number has increased by 5.8% when compared year-over-year in the period of January 2022 – December 2022 according to the Plumplot.
London Mayor’s welcome initiative of the free school meals follows the similar decisions by the progressive London councils in Newham, Islington, Southwark, Westminster City and Tower Hamlets to offer their own universal primary school free school meals. Harrow?

The Conservative administrations in Harrow have a somewhat troublesome history about the waste collection, seemingly because of its councillors responsible for this area of the council work.
The wheelie bins in Harrow were introduced by the marginal Conservative administration in 1989 on a trial basis with an assurance that these would not become permanent automatically. But then they did, causing serious backlash, as the sophisticated Harrow residents did not want the ‘bulking and ugly looking’ bin sitting in their front yard.
The Conservative administration in 2006 inherited the collection of the household waste using the Brown and Waste Bins system. But soon they decided to change in the frequency of collection of the Brown and Waste Bins. Not only this, but the then quick attention-seeking environmental portfolio holder recklessly moved the timetable for change from September 2006 to July 2006 to ‘further increase the council’s recycling performance’.
This waste bin collection arrangements became so unpopular that a Conservative seat in the Harrow Weald ward was badly lost in the August 2006 by-election that was held due to the death of the Tory councillor.
Later during their term of administration, Conservatives argued that they had been forced to introduce its three-bin system to improve the recycling rates needed to counter the rise of landfill taxes imposed by the Government.
Their claim that recycling rates in Harrow were 4 per cent before the council brought in wheelie bins, and are now 38 per cent, was misleading as they failed to point out  the ‘before’ figures were 20 years old –  Harrow introduced the bins in 1989.
In June 2009 the MailOnline also reported that Town hall chiefs were accused of pedalling ‘spurious propaganda’ after claiming that wheelie bins boosted recycling rates.
Eventually and because of the accumulated backlash of the waste collection arrangements and heavy-handed implementation of the CPZ (controlled parking zone) under the same Conservative portfolio holder for the environment, Tories lost the council in 2010.
In 2015, the council chose to roll out the Straight’s 7 litre kitchen caddy and kerbside caddy (food waste bin) to Harrow properties, apparently to improve the recycling rates.
The collection of the food waste bins looked steady but is now less satisfactory under the new council administration (Tory), like as indicated by the resident comments on the Harrow council Facebook page that reported ‘since launching food waste recycling in flats last summer, we have now delivered kitchen caddies to 4,000 flats in Harrow’!
“Shame they don’t get collected from houses, mine is missed more often than not!! Fed up with reporting it and still not being collected!!” a comment.
“What has happened to the food waste collections? Until four weeks ago, our bin was missed once since it started. A fortnight ago and yesterday our road was missed? Yet each time it is marked as completed on the website. It means the website is pointless as someone just pretend the bins have been collected” another comment.
Like before, the quality of the environmental services is the most worrying under the present (Con) portfolio-holder as well.

“I can’t believe Harrow Council are signing off £400,000 on lawyers. £400,000 could deliver a library for Harrow’s children, or they could even offer people payments towards scrapping polluting vehicles. Instead, they’re spending the money on trying to keep the air we breathe toxic” says Krupesh Hirani, the London assembly member for Brent and Harrow. (image from his tweet).

The Harrow council claims to be a council that puts residents first, and a borough that is clean and safe.
Harrow alongside with few other Tory London boroughs issued a “pre action” warning letter to Transport for London last month, threatening legal action if Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand the ultra-low emission zone, that includes Harrow, on August 29 is implemented.
Harrow council’s leaders are set to issue High Court proceedings by February 24 against London mayor Sadiq Khan.
They are prepared to spend up to £400,000 fighting the expansion of the Ulez at the time of the tight council budget, proposing an increase to council tax by 4.99% again.
A controversial member of the Tory group on the Harrow council, Councillor Hall, sits at the London assembly and misses no opportunity to attack Sadiq Khan!!

The Harrow council claims to be a council that puts residents first, and a borough that is clean and safe, through a proposed increase to council tax by 4.99% again.
In reality, it appears that this council statement is not owned by all council members with a responsibility, resulting in less than acceptable quality of the council services in some cases.
For example, residents still struggle for prompt and satisfactory response to their queries and complaints. The council letters where received miss the contact information such as an email address or a telephone number, making officer-resident interaction almost impossible!
The quality of the environmental services is particularly worrying:
Autumn leaf collection management, especially in many Labour held wards, is bad. In some cases, the footpath became quite slippery when the leaves got wet/ sticky after the rain, risking residents safety.

Litter picking service in the parks and side streets has deteriorated to a point where even some politicians join the residents voluntary litter picking sessions!
We have seen evidence of the food bins (black cady) often being missed (these are usually collected in the dark hours of the morning).
When the missing out is reported, the automated ‘donotreply’ email informs that ‘our crews will collect your bin within 3 working days’ but they are not collected, though they are at the edge of the property, not overflowing and don’t contain anything that shouldn’t be in that bin.
The street cleansing/ repairing programme, regularly carried out previously, has declined.
Although Covid is not a key factor now, the council has seemingly failed to fully recover or is using it as an excuse not to recover from the decline in the quality of its work in many cases.