COMMENT: A Right Old Labour Housing Mess

4.07.00pm GMT Sat 23rd Feb 2008

Labour voted to put up rents by 7.23%

Lambeth tenants may have felt battered almost into submission by Labour's Great ALMO Vote Swindle, service standards everywhere in free-fall, and inflation-busting rent, parking and service charges, but every Housing Forum in the Borough has now rejected Labour's brutal plans in a move thought to be without precedent.

Frankly Labour's Housing strategy is in a right old mess. But it is not Labour's inept but highly paid cabinet members who are suffering it is tenants who are being told to cough up more and more money for a rapidly dwindling service.

The really sad part is that under the Liberal Democrats service approval ratings started improving for the first time in donkey's years - and housing investment on repairs and major improvements was running at record levels.

Labour reversed all that good work at a stroke, closed down area offices leaving tenants more remote from housing officers who could cater for their needs, got rid of caretaking staff ( down from 106 to 48 ) and warden schemes that between them kept estates clean and safe, and now seem to be running up a backlog of essential repairs prior to their hoped-for ALMO privatisation.

For the second year in a row Labour has delivered tenants a slap in the face with inflation-busting rent increases, this year voting for a 7.23 per cent increase, while their inefficiency and poor management is running up arrears in rents collected to record levels. Labour's answer? To double the estate parking charges and hike up other service charges to bridge the gap.

Meanwhile, Labour has embarked on an orgy of sales of family-sized council-owned property in a borough where the waiting list for decent housing gets longer by the minute. And on Lambeth's South bank, Labour was quite happy to approve a scheme for a tower of luxurious riverside apartments with no social housing at all.

The Government and the London Mayor like to talk big about the need for more affordable housing but in Lambeth existing tenants are finding out the hard way that there's nothing remotely affordable about living under Labour.