Lambeth Boundary Review Update

Late last year we submitted proposals to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England's 20 year review of Lambeth Borough's ward boundaries and posted about it here. LGBCE has now issued its draft recommendations for Lambeth (click here for their summary), which may be the most radical shake-up of the boundaries since the 1970s.  This is good news for the borough, as there has been both strong population growth and the current 22 wards are quite big and unwieldy, not serving Lambeth's many communities.

We are especially pleased because the recommendations largely adopt the Lambeth Liberal Democrat proposal for number of wards - 26, new ward boundaries and some new ward names.

We reviewed the guidance and the terms of reference and saw an opportunity to both tweak some existing wards and build new wards around real, smaller communities.Like much of London, Lambeth is a place of many villages, whether they be based around town centres, parks, schools, estates or main roads. Knock on a door in an estate or down a street and tell them their community is their ward and they'll tell you you are wrong, it's their estate, their street, their neighbours. Just look at the WhatsApp Community Support Groups created during the Pandemic. 

We also suggested new names for the new wards, like Brixton Windrush, based around Windrush Square, or the two new wards replacing Tulse Hill, Rush Common and St Martins. Or Clapham Park, Clapham Abbeville or Kennington. This is not an exercise in renaming existing places, these are new names for new wards based on actual communities, for once. 

So let's take this opportunity to fix the Council's boundaries and make them fit Lambeth for once, not the otherway around like the status quo.