Hoey Calls for Housing Take-Over

11.47.55am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 28th Apr 2009

In a call for Housing Minister Margaret Beckett to bring Government Inspectors into Lambeth's crisis-riven Housing Department, Labour's veteran Vauxhall MP has now sided with hundred's of angry tenants and leaseholders and Lib Dem opposition councillors.

Kate Hoey made the astonishing and desperate call for direct Government intervention to the Housing Minister during a special emergency debate in the House of Commons on Friday. Sitting next to grim-faced outgoing MP for Streatham, Keith Hill, Ms Hoey lambasted years of poor management, neglected repairs and corruption within Lambeth Housing.

Hoey lay the blame for the highest rent rises in the country squarely at the door of her Labour colleagues running the Council. She highlighted the extraordinary situation where only a year ago Labour Councillor colleagues had boasted that the housing accounts were in good order only to have them nose-dive into huge deficits within weeks. The department now appears close to collapse.

The maverick MP also revealed that she had been deluged with letters of complaint from hard working constituents who are now at their wits end to know how they were expected to pay for Labour's draconian £12 a week rent increases imposed on them by purely to bring the Housing Revenue Account from out of the red.

Ms Beckett replied gravely that the Government was currently seeking to reward prudent Councils that had kept rent rises to 6% or less this year with further assistance to reduce them to an average of 3% during the credit crunch.

Ms Beckett warned that there was no mechanism available to reduce the impact of Lambeth's swingeing 17% increase and argued that if she made a special case of one poorly-managed borough she would be under pressure to bail-out others.

News that Lambeth's Executive Director of Housing is also now departing leaves a dearth of senior managers at the heart of Lambeth Housing and suggests an even greater sense of drift. There is still no ALMO chair, a massive sale of family-sized homes is imminent and there is mounting anger from tenants and tenants leaders over what appears to be the complete breakdown of housing services.

Meanwhile, another Labour pet housing project Clapham Park Homes has only just scraped-through its first inspection to grab one star while the much-heralded ALMO Lambeth (barely) Living sees problems ahead for at least the next eighteen months.

"It comes to something when desperate local MP's have to call for an emergency debate in parliament because they know only too well that Lambeth's hard-pressed tenants and leaseholders have never had such a torrid time," said Lib Dem Councillor Brian Palmer

"Housing in Lambeth requires real leadership right now and Labour is certainly not providing it."