The Civic Centre should be sold and the site redeveloped. It is far too big, encourages inefficiency and bureaucracy and is symbolic of the problems at Harrow Council which the Audit Commission so graphically highlighted last month.

The Audit Commission, as Harrow Times readers will recall, rated Harrow as the worst performing local authority in London and the third worst in the UK as a whole. On finance, children's services, adult services, planning, refuse collection etc, Harrow was rated as not being good enough and a drastic overhaul of the council is desperately required. Thus far the council's political leadership has not responded.

The Civic Centre is a vast monument to Thatcherite Britain. It is at once inaccessible, inefficient and inflexible. There have been numerous refurbishments, none of which have made a substantial difference to local people. From conversations with other residents of Harrow it is clear that what people want are smaller local council offices across the borough, supported by a smaller, more accessible Town Hall/Civic Centre (perhaps on the same site) where people can access council staff quickly.

I have heard from constituents how difficult people find it getting through to Harrow Council about problems they have experienced. This should not be the case. Often my constituents tell me of simple problems which, through a little common sense and one-to-one contact could be resolved, but instead they have to wait on hold for lengthy periods and very worryingly, they often can not get through to Harrow Council at all.

I am concerned at the amount of over-development in the borough. Instead of development in already overcrowded areas of the borough, the Civic Centre site could be developed. This would generate money for Harrow Council, which could then be invested in improving council services. The income could be invested in improvements, for example in Harrow schools, roads, services for the borough's elderly and vulnerable and green spaces.

Harrow Council's political leadership could decide to sell the Civic Centre as it currently is, redevelop the site, securing extra space for housing and community use and have a new smaller purpose-built Civic Centre/Town Hall on the same site, generating huge annual savings for the borough. These savings could be reinvested in Harrow people. The sale and redevelopment of this monument to Thatcherite excess could be one key step to getting Harrow Council working for Harrow residents.