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."