WITH more people turning to the Citizens' Advice Bureau than ever before, the Guardian has spoken to the district’s departing chairman about the challenges facing the service.
Peter Gordon, who started giving legal advice when the bureau was set up in the district 35 years ago, has headed the Epping, Loughton and Waltham Abbey branches for six years.
“The bureau has expanded and its work has increased,” he said. “At the moment, it’s very busy with a lot of debt work, family problems and housing, which is related to debt – people are worried about their mortgages and rents.
“I think the thing that’s been building up over the years has been debt.”
Volunteers for the district’s Citizens' Advice Bureau (CAB) have dealt with more than 11,500 problems from more than 3,300 people in the district over the past year.
Most issues were with benefits and tax credits, mainly housing benefit, followed closely by debt, then housing, employment, family and relationship problems and general legal difficulties.
Mr Gordon, who lives in Albion Park, Loughton, worked as a solicitor for Attwaters and Liell in Loughton High Road, for 30 years and is one of three lawyers who take turns to give advice at the bureau’s centres for free, along with its 61 volunteer advisors.
“I think the local vicar suggested we should have a Citizens’ Advice Bureau and he dragged in all the local solicitors,” he said. “I saw it as an opportunity to give something back.
“I think we provide a good service and we’re well-organised. When I started, if you went into the office, there would be rows and rows of files where we had all the information system.
“No, of course, all that is online.”
He will continue to serve the bureau as a trustee and said his main challenge will now be to oversee the replacement of the Epping and Loughton office buildings.
“Epping and Loughton are effectively collapsing,” he said. “There are plans afoot to rebuild both of them, but this gives us all sorts of new problems, with not having premises temporarily.”
The Theydon Trust, which owns the CAB office in Hemnall Street, Epping, has just applied for planning permission to demolish it and build a two-storey replacement.
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