Labour's Sell-Off Sell Out

10.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 21st May 2007

Dustcarts are being moved around the borough by Labour at enormous cost to the tax payer

In defiance of assurances made to the Council's Planning Committee, Lambeth Labour has just published details of plans to sell-off several Council-owned Industrial Estates being used as temporary decant sites for vehicle depots.

Angela Davis (Coldharbour ward), Mahatma Gandhi (Herne Hill ward), Shakespeare Road Residual (Coldharbour ward and Vale Street Depot (Gipsy Hill) all appear on a property disposals programme as due to be sold upon creation of a permanent site for the Council's fleet of refuse and recycling trucks - the whole reorganisation being needed to build the Brixton Academy on part of the Shakespeare Road depot.

Labour's Regeneration Chief, Cllr Paul McGlone, told Planning Committee members that as most of the sites are classified as Key Industrial Business Areas (KIBAs) which are in short supply in the Borough for providing much needed employment, they would return to their former use which is protected under the Council's UDP Planning rules. Liberal Democrat Councillors warned that demolishing buildings on KIBA's might render them commercially unviable unless the Council was prepared to rebuild the demolished Industrial units.

A further depot at 2-10 Somerleyton Road in Brixton is also slated for sale once the temporary City Academy moves from the site to the permanent Shakespeare Road site.

Liberal Democrats say the loss of these Key Industrial Business Areas will further dilute Lambeth's ability to attract small businesses and provide much needed local employment. It is also further proof of the spiralling cost of Labour's politically driven depot relocation policy.