A LANDLORD faces being forced to tear down two flats illegally built over four parking spaces.

Southend Council is set to authorise enforcement action against the owners of Sovereign Mews in Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff.

The four-storey building has 12 authorised flats, which were approved in 1999.

However, the developer has also built two additional flats over what were car parking spaces.

Council officers have made several visits to the site and concluded the living standards inside the flat are not up to standard due to having only one window as a light source and the lack of access to waste and bike storage.

They also stated no efforts have been made by the building’s owners to submit a planning application to rectify the situation - and they have ignored multiple letters and requests to meet.

In a report set to go before Southend Council’s development committee next week, officers have recommended members approve enforcement action to demolish the two flats, along with a balcony on the first floor, and reinstate all four parking spaces which were built over.

The report said: “The unauthorised development is poorly designed and fails to provide new

residential units of an acceptable quality and standard.”

Cheryl Nevin, councillor for Milton Ward where Sovereign Mews resides, said she has seen many poorly built flats appear in the borough.

She said: “I’m pleased they are wanting to take enforcement action.

“The ward itself is very overdeveloped, we need to make sure that any accommodation is habitable.

“When you look around the ward as we have done and see the developments that are going in, especially in the centre of the town, you see how many small flats are being placed into very small areas.

“There’s similar things happening in Leigh, and I’m sure more widely across the borough.

“We then get the knock-on of that, with things like ground floor windows opening right onto the pavements and roads, which lead to people hitting their heads.

“You also get doors that don’t fit into their frames, and windows which can’t be fitted. Enforcement is definitely the way to combat it.” The Echo made efforts to contact the landlord but they could not be reached.