AN investigative journalist is helping Southend Council to pinpoint the scale of homeless people parachuted into the city by London boroughs, which is feared to be in the hundreds.

The council says other councils are increasingly placing their homeless in cheaper areas like Southend, making it harder for the city’s residents to find homes.

A scheme to pay Southend landlords to earmark accommodation for city residents is currently being considered by the council.

Coupled with the cost of living crisis, a rise in evictions and the housing needs of asylum seekers and refugees there is a growing pressure to the council in providing housing to those in need, a report to the policy and resources committee has revealed.

The council said it was working with an investigative journalist, to uncover the scale of homeless people being moved to Southend, which has historically has a lot of rented accommodation, houses and guest houses.

Speaking at a scrutiny committee meeting, Margaret Borton, Labour councillor for Victoria Ward, asked what impact out of area placements were having on council services.

Glyn Hawksworth, director of regeneration, housing and regulatory services, said: “Those impacts are felt in a number of different ways within the council, not least the impacts on housing departments and their ability to try and find properties locally for the people presenting to them but also where there are children in those household placed out of area placements there are impacts in terms of local education places.”

Mr Hawkesworth said health and social care services were also impacted.

Asked how many people had been placed in the city, Mr Hawksworth added: “It’s really difficult to put a figure on that. We are not always notified as the legislation requires that we are. Often they don’t unfortunately.

“However, we have seen data collected by an investigative journalist we’re working with and that shows an entirely different and much longer list of out of area placements at different councils.

“We don’t know the precise number but it’s considerable and in the many hundreds.”

Ms Borton called for a letter be written to the Government urging action on the problem.

She added: “It is a concern to me that other boroughs are not fulfilling their statutory obligation, letting us know when people are moving into the borough.

“Some people moving in may have special needs and if we’re not aware of them we won’t know what their needs are and that’s a real concern to me.”

Tony Cox, Tory leader of the council, said the council had written to Government and is working with Essex councils to write again to London boroughs.