Havering Consultations

During December 2025 we ran a ‘Christmas Means Community’ campaign to bring residents together through joyful, inclusive activities that embrace diversity, boost wellbeing, and strengthen connections. 

Hosted by our Housing Engagement Team and our fantastic partners, we held events that spread festive cheer and created opportunities for everyone to get involved and feel part of something special. 

We asked you for your favourite things at Christmas, be it food, people, traditions and Christmas songs.

Many people shared their views on our social media channels, and we had 17 people respond to our online survey.   

This is the data from the online survey: 

• The most Christmas cheer came jointly from the post code areas of RM13 (Rainham, South Hornchurch, Wennington and Beam Park East) and RM14 (Upminster, Cranham, North Ockendon and Bulphan). 

• The most favourite Christmas song was jointly Driving Home for Christmas (Chris Rea) and Fairytale of New York (The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl). 

• Your most favourite festive tradition was spending time with your family, whether by having Christmas dinner together, watching a Christmas movie, shopping or baking together. 

• You shared your favourite recipes which included homemade cookies, cakes, sausage rolls, left-over turkey pie and a twist on cooking brussels sprouts for those who don’t like them! 

• Most residents said that the people or person who made Christmas special for them was their family, neighbours, front-line people working over Christmas and Santa!  

We shared your feedback on social media and in our Living in Havering e-newsletter.  You can sign up here for Havering Council news and updates. 

Between August and September 2025, we asked residents, businesses, and key stakeholders for their views on a proposal to introduce a Lane Rental Scheme on selected parts of the borough’s road network in Havering, aimed at reducing disruption from road and street works. 

In line with national Lane Rental Regulations and Department for Transport guidance, the proposed scheme would help minimise congestion in the busiest areas, improve coordination of works, and encourage quicker completion by applying charges to activities on high traffic roads at peak times. This approach supports the Mayor of London’s commitment to expand Lane Rental schemes and has been developed in partnership with Transport for London, using TfL’s pan London data to identify where charges should apply. 

To seek the views of stakeholders, Havering undertook a four-week period of consultation, from the 15th August 2025 until the 19th of September 2025 with key Stakeholders.  

The consultation was preceded by a traffic sensitive review relating to the proposed Lane Rental streets, with notification provided to stakeholders on 8th July 2025. We received 4 responses to the consultation, including 3 from utility companies, and 1 from the Greater London Authority.  

All 4 of these responses contained a series of questions and comments relating to points of clarification and the costs and benefits of the proposed scheme.  

There were several common responses raised by the consultees, these were in relation to:  

· The charge free period for immediate works 

· The categorisation of footways and cycle tracks 

· The use of Street Manager terminology 

· The Cost Benefit Analysis 

· Waivers and exemptions 

· Waivers for collaborative works 

· The application of revenues 

· The categorisation of weekends and Bank Holidays 

· The benefits of a consistent pan-London scheme 

Additionally, an online public consultation exercise was launched on 29th August and ran to 30th September 2025. Similar documents were made available as part of this consultation exercise. As part of both consultation exercises, both stakeholders and members of the public were invited to send general comments via email.  

A total of 11 comments were received to this consultation.

Havering's Cabinet met on 8 January 2026 and agreed to proceed with the lane rental charging scheme.   

As a result, the Council will now submit an application to implement a lane rental scheme to the Department for Transport (DfT).  

The DfT will need to consider whether to grant the application. Havering Council will update our website with the outcome of the DfT’s consideration of our application as soon as they announce it to us. Officers will also write to all those individuals and organisations who replied to the consultation. 

Your comments have been taken into account and any amendments to our proposals can be found in the full Public Document Pack Here which includes the consultation report, Cabinet report and appendices. 

Between August and September 2025, we consulted residents on Havering’s Statement of Gambling Principles. This policy outlines the Council’s approach to licensing gambling premises, managing those licences, and the standards expected of licensees. 

The Statement of Gambling Principles is reviewed, consulted on, and re-published every three years. The current version is due for renewal this year, so we have refreshed it to ensure it remains up to date and reflects Havering’s current circumstances and their impact on the local gambling economy. 

We received 17 responses to the online consultation along with 2 written responses from key stakeholders: the Betting and Gaming Council, via Gosschalks Solicitors, and the charity Gambling Harm. 

• All online respondents (100%) identified as residents of the borough.

• Some comments were supportive of the draft Statement of Gambling Principles.

• A larger number of comments were less supportive and raised concerns about the number of premises in the borough, however, it is not possible under current legislation for us to limit the number of premises. 

As a direct result of your feedback, we will make some minor amendments to the policy before it is presented to Havering’s Cabinet for a decision in the near future. 

We will update this page as soon as a decision has been made.