AFTER hearing that there as many as 2,000 unregistered homes of multiple occupancy in Thurrock a councillor has suggested it is time to take control of the situation by building or converting more dwellings.

At this week's meeting of Thurrock Council's Housing overview and scrutiny committee Cllr Lynn Worrall said that it was clear there were significant problems with enforcement and one way of addressing the problem would be for the council to build such houses to ensure people didn't fall into the hands of 'unscrupulous' landlords.

She said: "Why don't we build our own HMOs so we are in control. Our housing list indicates that we could house people, the pandemic shows that lots of people are being moved out of their homes and need somewhere to go.

"If we were to put them in the right places while we are building we have some control.

"We keep going to unscrupulous landlords, they are the landlords are just not nice landlords, why don't we take a bit of chance and build some of these ourselves?"

The huge amount of action needed to take enforcement also concerned Cllr Joy Redsell who, on hearing that officers believed there are up to 2,000 HMOs that are not on the official records, said: "How are we going to find them?

"I worry that we are allowing too much of this. How often do we check these houses. If the people in them don't put themselves on the electoral list, who do we check?"