Homes wrecked under Loony Labour

12.47.00pm GMT Tue 4th Mar 2008

Labour Lambeth are to wreck this home rather than see it brought back into use

Loony Labour-run Lambeth council has wrecked two homes in Streatham because money is not available to do them up - while not far away they have more than £100,000 of public money to spend converting three flats into a single house worth an estimated £1m.

Meanwhile Labour have been quietly ramping up their sell-off of council homes - at a single auction last week they raked in £3.4 million with the sale of flats and houses, having previously claimed they were halting the sale of council homes.

The contradictions in loony Labour's housing policy are shown first by the stark contrast between Lydhurst Ave and Kirkstall Rd, both in Streatham Hill. Numbers 6 to 8 Lydhurst Ave have been squatted for years but with the squatters removed the council has made the homes "totally uninhabitable to prevent resquatting". The council says funds are not available to carry out repairs, so they will just be left empty again - the answer, says the council, is to wreck them so that squatters will not reoccupy.

At 87 Kirkstall Rd, in the sought after Telford Park conservation area, a property divided into three flats, the squatters have been removed but the council has so much public money to burn that it is proposing to lavish an estimated £100K to turn it into a seven-bedroom house for rent by a single family - it says the house can accommodate 11 people. If restored the house is likely to be worth in the region of £1million.

Under the Lib Dem-led administration it was the policy to dispose of "uneconomic voids". Using a consistent financial formula empty and derelict properties were sold if the cost of bringing them back into use could not be justified - the proceeds were reinvested in the council's housing stock. If 87 Kirkstall Rd were sold for £800,000 it would bring an estimated 400 council homes up to the Decent Homes Standard by renewing unfit kitchens.

Labour's John Kazantzis boasted he was reversing that policy, claiming he was halting the sell-off of large family homes - but on February 14th Labour auctioned off 12 street properties for £3.4 million, including an eight-room three storey house in Saltoun Rd, Brixton sold for £695,000. That, even by Cllr Kazantzis's standards, is a family-sized home.

Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson Jeremy Clyne, who represents Streatham Hill, has challenged the decision to deconvert 87 Kirkstall Rd into a single property by calling it in before a scrutiny committee, saying that the council has not even bothered to detail the demand for seven-bedroom/11 person properties.

"The best thing the council can do is to sell this enormous property without further delay to help fund the Decent Homes programme. The council needs the money desperately to meet its promises of decent kitchens and bathrooms."

"Housing under Cllr Kazantzis is a crazy world of hypocrisy and confusion - selling off big family homes at the same time as claiming to have halted such sales. And to wreck homes and leave them empty because funds are not available while still having enough to turn three flats into a £1 million house is the economics of the madhouse."