COMMENT: Labour Lambeth Waste-Fest (Lambeth Liberal Democrats)

Lambeth Liberal Democrats <office@lambethlibdems.org.uk>

COMMENT: Labour Lambeth Waste-Fest

March 2, 2010 7:42 PM

Labour Leader, Cllr Steve Reed, has been occupying the air-waves a lot recently saying that he will cut back on waste as a means of saving Lambeth front-line services from the savage 20% cuts after the election that even he's admitting to if he's re-elected.

Trouble is, most of that waste has built up over the last four years while he's actually been presiding over the Council. Why did he not mount a single-minded war on waste back then so that today there would be a lot more funds available for frontline services like our crumbling leisure centres and libraries?

Even leaving aside Labour's chart-busting levels of pricey payouts to private consultants, there were an astonishing 374 staff according to the 2008/09 accounts paid over £50,000 each - that's up from just 233 for the 2005/06 financial year. And using the same accounts and financial years, the number of staff paid over £100,000 a year also jumped from 10 to 15.

Lambeth Life, the infamously uncritical 'critical friend' of New Labour, pushed through household doors every fortnight, was supposed to be self-financing by being an advertising magnet to private businesses. It isn't and gets filled up with Council and public service announcements instead - and was last reported overspending by £250,000 even its own enormously wasteful budget. Some 50 staff are apparently engaged in what is described as campaigns and communications work.

Labour is wasting loads of money just on buildings - most of them empty. Labour has spent £1000 a day for 44 months (£610,000) just to mothball Mary Seacole House in Clapham while another £290,000 was blown on other empty buildings. Even those it occupies like the Town Hall have highly inefficient and unregulated heating systems so that windows have to be opened in the middle of winter.

Meanwhile Lambeth tops the London league tables for empty council houses and also the number that are subsequently squatted - including one whole block of flats in Thornton ward run by Labour's cabinet member for Housing.

Latest figures show that there are over 1000 empty homes in Lambeth - double that when Labour took office. Currently there are 73 squatted properties - up from just 12 when Labour took charge in 2006 - plus a further 75 'unauthorised occupants' in Lambeth Labour New Speak. There's also an estimated 6-7,000 more households on the council waiting list than in April 2005.

This is an appalling amount of waste. It has been shown that Lambeth is losing £8million in rent from them alone - money that could be used to improve derelict properties, provide a home for a family, and bring in more rent. A virtuous circle in fact. But Labour would rather spend money it does not have on fat legal fees and court cases to evict the squatters it has created by leaving property empty.

And Lambeth has now finally admitted that its figure of 30% of council homes not meeting the Government's Decent Homes standard will actually rise to 40% by 2014. They've also admitted that there's no hope of getting the promised Government money for improvements until beyond 2014.

So let's be clear - under Labour during a recession that's been worse than any in living memory, social housing standards in Lambeth have got far, far worse.

That really is an inexcusable waste.