10 Most Recent News Stories

Government Poised To Take Over Lambeth Housing Mess

10.41.01am GMT Mon 8th Feb 2010

As Labour-Lambeth's privatised housing company Lambeth Living lurches from crisis to crisis Labour have been finally forced to admit that there's a serious risk of the Government interceding if they cannot balance the Housing Revenue Account by the end of March 2010.

Lambeth has now placed the Housing Revenue Account deficit on a Red Alert on its Risk Register. In 2008/9 the HRA was overspent by a whopping £12.2 million and is also £1.2 million adrift in the current financial year. Local Councils must balance their Housing Revenue Accounts each year by law. Lambeth failed to do so in 2008/9 and was given a special dispensation to put together an action plan to restore balances by March of this year.

Lambeth Labour Leaders then recruited local MP and former Government Housing Minister Keith Hill as Chairman of Lambeth Living in a desperate bid to sort out the mess but each week brings fresh revelations of money being wasted, budgets not being met and the funding gap widening.

Lambeth Living has ordered a stop on all but emergency housing repairs - this is set to continue until June at least. And Lambeth Living is further threatening to cut up to 130 jobs, many of them frontline, and close another two area housing offices in a desperate bid to close the budget gap.

Lambeth Council, itself in financial difficulties, cut Lambeth Living's budget by £2.3 million forcing Keith Hill to publicly criticise the move saying this would endanger meeting the 2-star Audit Commission rating by 2011 required to trigger the oft-promised Decent Homes investment.

Meanwhile, the Government has unhelpfully frozen any ALMO funding until at least 2011/12 in order to inject life into Gordon Brown's promise to build more new homes.

Lambeth Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Ashley Lumsden, said, "However you try to cut it, Labour has failed Council tenants big-time. They conned everyone into accepting an ALMO that few people wanted and one that has wasted colossal resources and put everyone in a far worse position than if Labour politicians down in the Town Hall had just knuckled down to the job."

Cllr Lumsden added, "Labour just wanted a easy way out from their responsibilities but they've screwed-up spectacularly and tenants and leaseholders are now suffering from huge bills and non-existent services. The really scary prospect is what Labour has in store for them after the election if they were to win it."

The revelation that the Council is now taking the risk of government takeover seriously comes a full 15 months after the Lib Dem group on Lambeth council called on the housing minister Margaret Beckett to intervene because of the crisis in Lambeth housing.

"We were rebuffed by the Minister with a lot of platitudes. Since then things have gone from bad to worse," commented Lib Dem housing spokesperson Cllr Jeremy Clyne. "Even after last year's staggering rent rise and with Lambeth tenants now paying almost the highest council rents in London the financial crisis has deepened. Housing under this Labour administration has been a tale of disaster."

Read "Government Poised To Take Over Lambeth Housing Mess".

Lambeth Homeless Fraud is the just the Tip of an Iceberg

9.28.00am GMT Mon 8th Feb 2010

Massive overpayments have been made by Labour-run Lambeth to private landlords but the amounts uncovered could be just the tip of an iceberg as fears of a multi-million pound fraud go uninvestigated.

Liberal Democrat opposition councillors have actively been pursuing the allegations of a fraud cover-up in Labour-run Lambeth's troubled Housing Department as Labour councillors have sat on attempts to pursue the allegations.

Labour Lambeth was put under severe pressure when it was forced to admit to a monumental cock-up after its temporary housing budget went overspent by a staggering £13.5million in just two years. The scandal has cost each council taxpayer hundreds of pounds.

Lambeth had been paying private landlords to house homeless people who did not exist - but Labour politicians down in the Town Hall said they could find no evidence of fraud. In addition the council continued to pay out for a whole estate which had been taken over by 300 squatters and failed to take into account a cut in funding from the Department for Work and Pensions.

After a full-scale scrutiny commission it was decided that the possibility of fraud be pursued and a "fully conclusive report" on "private sector leasing" be brought to the Council's corporate committee. But the decision was ignored. Now more than 12 months late it has resulted in a dismissive 14-line response still claiming there is no evidence of fraud, and even this "report" has only been produced after repeated requests by Lib Dem opposition councillors. More than £875,000 was overpaid for empty flats, it is revealed, but it is stated that this has all been recovered and there is no evidence of any fraud, it is claimed.

The report however admits that £232,000 had been over-paid to 10 hoteliers for bed and breakfast accommodation. The overpayments were identified in October 2008 but now, more than a year later, £171,000 remains outstanding. A shocking £78,135 is still to be recovered from a single hotelier. "Little action has been taken in the last 12 months to recover the amounts outstanding from the providers," the report admits. No comment is made as to whether fraud is involved.

"Apart from this admission that private landlords were overpaid by almost a £1million and that hoteliers have got away with almost £200,000 this whitewash of a report smacks of a massive cover-up," commented Lib Dem housing spokesperson Jeremy Clyne. "This could be just the tip of a huge iceberg that this discredited Labour administration is desperately trying to hush up."

Read "Lambeth Homeless Fraud is the just the Tip of an Iceberg".

Labour Hits the Buffers Over Streatham Hub

3.28.00pm GMT Fri 5th Feb 2010

Streatham's leisure centre flagship enterprise known as the Streatham Hub is now thought to have reached a crisis point between the Council and Tesco.

And local Lib Dem Councillors fear that Labour, out of sheer desperation, may renege on long-held promises made to residents and Ice Rink users to maintain the existing ice facilities until a new facility is built and open.

So far - and with a twice delayed public meeting slated for Wednesday 10th February - it is not clear whether the current impasse can be broken in time.

What will anger many frustrated onlookers is Labour's dithering over an entire period of nearly four years in office to finally broker a deal with the supermarket giant following an in-principal planning approval in 2003 to a scheme to build a new combined swimming pool, leisure centre and ice rink in new state-of-the-art facilities on the site of the redundant bus garage.

That scheme underpinned the public commitment made to maintain continuity of ice skating in Streatham which has provided a unique sports and leisure facility that draws people from all over south London and beyond into the area and provides one of the few remaining outlets for young people to enjoy.

Now the Council-owned Leisure Centre and Swimming Pool next door which closed suddenly last November lies empty, derelict and abandoned with its roof about to collapse and a repair bill rumoured to cost many millions - as a sad metaphor for Labour neglect.

Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Ashley Lumsden said, "I fear the position is very precarious indeed. Either Tesco will walk away and simply close the Ice Rink, or Lambeth will let them demolish all the existing buildings, which many people cherish, to build their supermarket with no guarantee of any replacement leisure facilities. What kind of choice is that?"

Cllr Lumsden added, "Labour has handled this key regeneration project appallingly badly and seems to have no 'Plan B' in mind. Streatham residents will never forgive Labour for failing to save our ice rink."

Read "Labour Hits the Buffers Over Streatham Hub".

Lambeth Pothole Crisis

12.05.00pm GMT Thu 4th Feb 2010

As the winter snow and ice recedes numerous Lambeth residential roads, already in poor condition, have been left pockmarked and debris-strewn like the surface of the moon, say opposition Lib Dem Councillors.

Such is the crisis of road potholes being reported by members of the public and councillors that Labour-run Lambeth reckons it will now be Spring before they finally get on top of all these emergency repairs.

Normally large dangerous potholes are repaired within 24 hours of being reported but the sheer scale of disrepair across the borough is such that many deep potholes will be left unfilled for up to three months!

Motorists will doubtless complain at the damage to their tyres and suspension systems but it is cyclists and motorcyclists who have the most to fear from the current outbreak of craters in the normally smooth tarmac. A large pothole can easily buckle a wheel or burst a tyre on a bicycle. Cyclists can also be thrown from their bikes - perhaps under the wheels of a passing car or HGV.

The situation can be made much worse at night and in bad weather when a pothole can be easily missed by poor street lighting conditions or if the cyclist is dazzled by the lights of oncoming vehicles. A motorcyclist is also vulnerable if they swerve to avoid a large pothole.

Cycling Lib Dem Councillor Rob Banks said, "Usually I can dodge the odd Lambeth pothole on my way to work or down to the Town Hall but some roads now are simply terrible - I'll have to swap for a Mountain Bike soon."

Lambeth has said that such is the scale of the problem that it is prioritising main distributor roads first and will deal with residential roads afterwards but that the whole programme could take many months.

Lambeth also says that it will respond to Councillor or resident requests about dangerous potholes sooner and patch them up. Trouble is that some roads in the borough now have so many potholes that it is hard to find some decent road surface to attach the patches to.

Read "Lambeth Pothole Crisis".

Empty Homes Jackpot in Lambeth

10.31.23am GMT Thu 28th Jan 2010

Labour-run Lambeth rarely excels in anything but it's really hit the jackpot for the number of empty council homes - and it's an absolute disgrace.

As we sink deeper into Labour's economic recession and some 18,000 people currently reside on Lambeth Labour's housing waiting list, figures just released from a Freedom of Information Act Request reveal for the first time the truly shocking levels of neglect of the borough's vital housing stock.

Out of more than five and a half thousand properties left empty in the capital Lambeth alone has one in five - and that's almost twice as many as the borough with the next highest total. The London-wide total of empty homes is conservatively estimated at 5,600 from among the twenty-two councils who responded to the FoI request. Lambeth's tally of misery is 1,090 - which itself is an appalling increase of 183 homes in just nine months.

Lambeth tried to justify this sorry state of affairs with the retort that the borough has one of the largest housing stocks in London at 26,431 units. However Camden with a larger stock of 32,879 had only 485 empty homes. To cap a truly dismal record, Lambeth had the second highest number of empty council properties being squatted of the London boroughs.

Even before Labour Lambeth ever gets round to legal action to evict squatters - and they've been hopelessly tardy about it in the past - it is losing an estimated £8 million a year just in lost revenue. No wonder Labour is again proposing inflation-busting rent increases of 5 per cent this year - that's nearly 20 per cent in two years.

Lib Dem Group Chair Cllr Brian Palmer said, "It is beyond tragic that these Labour nincompoops have inflicted such mortal damage to Lambeth's housing stock. Each empty house or flat is also a personal insult to the huge and rising tide of homeless families who see the prospect of occupying their own home vanishing even further into the distance."

Cllr Palmer added, "Labour's massive empty homes incompetence has also led to untold hardship to those tenants who are diligently paying their rent in this harsh recession through totally unnecessary rent increases and charges. A recent study has just revealed how the gap between rich and poor has widened under Labour - and in Lambeth it is not hard to see why."

Read "Empty Homes Jackpot in Lambeth".

Serious Crime Soars in Lambeth

1.13.17pm GMT Wed 20th Jan 2010

Only a week after admitting that Labour has lost the war against the drug dealers in Brixton comes the chilling news that knife and gun crime is also soaring in the borough.

The Safer Lambeth Partnership - a crime reduction initiative between the police, council and other agencies - has utterly failed to reduce a wave of serious criminality in the borough and one that looks set to get even worse as the recession bites.

The use of knives actually rose to 464 offences from 418 the year before, while the use of firearms peaked at 180 last year, against the 136 offences 12 months previously. The aim of the project had been to reduce those figures.

But this is not the only grim news afflicting soaraway Lambeth as a crime hotspot. Robbery and Burglary are also up when they are meant to have come down. Robberies have rocketed to 1,628 across the borough when they should have been cut to under 1,461. Residential burglaries have increased by 31 per cent year on year with 2,089 reported against an annual target of 1,766 per annum and three months left of the full year total.

Labour politicians and the police seem powerless to reverse this surging tide of criminality despite all their grand promises and supposed increased resources.

Liberal Democrats say that people have a right to feel safe in their own homes, their children need to feel safe from knife attack in the streets and guns are far too freely available. People are entitled to expect action not words.

Read "Serious Crime Soars in Lambeth".

COMMENT: Let them eat cake...

1.11.50pm GMT Wed 20th Jan 2010

Word has escaped that bankrupt Lambeth and debt-ridden Lambeth Living has been on a whopping spending spree with your money over the past eight months.

And not you will be surprised to learn by improving services or repairing the run-down housing stock but by employing expensive consultants in a salary bonanza amounting to over £1 Million in just eight months.

No wonder rents and charges have been sky high and why Lambeth Labour wants to dip into tenants' pockets yet again this year to the tune of five per cent for rent and eight per cent for service charges. They're having a laugh are they not?

Lambeth Labour has been acting like Robin Hood in reverse for some time by taking from the poor to pay their rich friends. They didn't say they'd be robbing you blind like this when they came to your door promising gifts of new kitchens and bathrooms did they?

But then none of the rich kids in New Labour Lambeth have the first idea what it is like to live from week to week trying to survive under Gordon Brown's skinflint government.

If they did they'd resign out of sheer embarrassment for what they've inflicted on tenants across the borough.

Never in the history of public housing have so few inflicted so much misery on so many.

Read "COMMENT: Let them eat cake...".

Labour Throws-in Towel over Drugs War

6.04.39pm GMT Tue 12th Jan 2010

Labour's tough talk over the open sale of drugs in Brixton Town Centre within sight of the Town Hall looks to be just that - talk.

Lambeth police commander Nick Ephgrave apparently conceded that he has not been given enough officers to patrol the political heart of the borough and a key transport hub that thousands of commuters use to get to work. Many commuters are forced daily to run the gauntlet of gangs of drug dealers openly peddling their wares near bus stops and Brixton Tube.

Lambeth Labour politicians have made much of how they have changed the image of Brixton as a magnet for drugs tourism but residents from outlying areas of Clapham, Streatham and Norwood who use Brixton to reach their workplaces by tube say they face constant harassment by drug dealers and risk being victim to other potential criminal acts.

Matters came to a head recently when Streatham Lib Dem Councillor Julian Heather waited at a bus stop and was harassed by persistent drug-pushers. When he objected and tried to ring the police for assistance he was manhandled to the ground and had a pint of milk poured over him.

Cllr Heather who was more shaken than stirred by his ordeal complained to the police that they had not responded with sufficient urgency to his call for assistance. Cllr Heather later discovered the CCTV camera covering the bus stop used by commuters after they leave the tube station, is blocked by a large road sign. Consequently the police had no footage of the incident to identify the assailant.

Cllr Heather said, "What is the point of having expensive CCTV in the heart of Brixton that is obscured by road signs? This is madness - someone could be killed next time at this busy bus stop and the police would have no means of identifying the perpetrator."

Cllr Heather added, "This just exposes Labour's hollow words about tackling crime and drug dealing in Brixton. Dealers openly flout the law because there are insufficient police on the streets - while Lambeth's CCTV cameras look at the back of road signs. Commuters are being put at risk by this folly."

Read "Labour Throws-in Towel over Drugs War".

Lambeth Closes Another Swimming Pool - Only One to Go for the Full Set

6.02.36pm GMT Tue 12th Jan 2010

No sooner had swimmers absorbed the shock announcement that the Streatham Leisure Centre had closed without warning in November and been directed to towards Clapham Pool as an alternative than the news that everyone has been dreading has just been announced.

Clapham Pool is to close for two years starting on the 15th January 2010.

Labour ran a mischievous campaign against the Liberal Democrats around the time of the 2006 local elections alleging that we planned to close Clapham Pool. In fact those sensible proposals to build a new Leisure Centre on the Mary Seacole House site would have kept the existing Clapham Pool operating while a new one was built.

Now Labour is reneging on its promise to voters to keep Clapham Swimming.

Even Brixton Recreation Centre in a masterly stroke of (dis)organisation will close its 'wetside' changing rooms on January 18th for at least two whole months for refurbishment work.

On Lambeth's website Streatham Pool users are still being directed to Clapham, while Clapham users are simply left to work it out for themselves.

What a hopeless muddle. Maybe Labour's grand strategists will be making the duck pond on Clapham Common available?

Read "Lambeth Closes Another Swimming Pool - Only One to Go for the Full Set".

Snow-flakey Lambeth Lacks True Grit

4.42.00pm GMT Thu 7th Jan 2010

As if there wasn't enough misery around, Lambeth piles on the agony just as soon as the temperature drops.

Reports have been flooding-in about residents who have not been able to drive their cars because Lambeth cannot salt and grit their areas in the recent cold snap. Worse still they can hardly stand-up on the pavements either.

Worst affected have been the hilly areas in the south of the borough such as West Norwood and Streatham (which are supposed to have priority) but we've heard Herne Hill and Brixton Hill residents complaining that their areas are just as bad and even the South Bank is reportedly like an ice-rink.

According to Lambeth Labour's spin, they're on top of it. But they were caught out just before Christmas - and they'd been crowing only days before that they could cope with anything the winter weather could throw at them. Back then they said that they'd never again be in the position they found themselves in February 2009 where they ran out of salt and grit and had to go begging to Southwark for a few cupfuls.

They haven't looked very on top of things over the last few days either and it has only been Lambeth motorists in a spin trying to traverse modest inclines on the way to work, school or shopping.

With more sub-zero temperatures and more snow threatened over the next few days let's hope that Lambeth does finally get its winter act together - and preferably before Spring arrives……

Read "Snow-flakey Lambeth Lacks True Grit".

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