10 Most Recent News Stories

Road Maintenance Budget Full of Holes

11.51.32am GMT Thu 11th Mar 2010

After one of the worst winters in decades, which left a borough's roads scarred and pockmarked like the surface of the Moon, Liberal Democrat Opposition Councillors have uncovered a sharp drop in spending on road maintenance in Labour-run Lambeth Council.

Spending on roads maintenance between 2002 and 2006 under the Liberal Democrat-led Council totalled nearly £5 million after a huge wave of protest from residents about the appalling state of the roads drove the previous Labour administration out of office. Yet since 2006 a mere 3.6 million had been spent under Labour during their four years in office.

Not only has the budget drastically reduced under Labour, the official figures reveal, but the number of roads resurfaced has also shrunk over the same period.

During the 2002-2006 period 109 roads in the borough were completely resurfaced, compared with just 67 roads between 2006 and 2010. And the current financial year will see the second lowest number of roads resurfaced over the entire period.

Liberal Democrats estimated during the 2002-2006 Council that unless spending was significantly increased that it could take 20 years to restore all the Borough's roads to a satisfactory condition.

Lib Dem Councillor Julian Heather said, "Labour likes to blame the state of the roads on the recent cold snap but this situation has not happened over night. Labour has slashed the roads budget when they should have been steadily increasing it, because there's an awful lot of catching-up to do."

Cllr Heather added, "Like so much under Labour, it's all talk and visions, while key services that most people see in return for their Council Tax are starved of funds. Whether it's roads, parks, libraries or leisure centres, Labour's essential infrastructural budgets have just been left full of holes. However, if Labour spin was tarmac we'd now have roads like billiard tables."

Read "Road Maintenance Budget Full of Holes".

COMMENT: Labour Lambeth Waste-Fest

7.42.24pm GMT Tue 2nd Mar 2010

Labour Leader, Cllr Steve Reed, has been occupying the air-waves a lot recently saying that he will cut back on waste as a means of saving Lambeth front-line services from the savage 20% cuts after the election that even he's admitting to if he's re-elected.

Trouble is, most of that waste has built up over the last four years while he's actually been presiding over the Council. Why did he not mount a single-minded war on waste back then so that today there would be a lot more funds available for frontline services like our crumbling leisure centres and libraries?

Even leaving aside Labour's chart-busting levels of pricey payouts to private consultants, there were an astonishing 374 staff according to the 2008/09 accounts paid over £50,000 each - that's up from just 233 for the 2005/06 financial year. And using the same accounts and financial years, the number of staff paid over £100,000 a year also jumped from 10 to 15.

Lambeth Life, the infamously uncritical 'critical friend' of New Labour, pushed through household doors every fortnight, was supposed to be self-financing by being an advertising magnet to private businesses. It isn't and gets filled up with Council and public service announcements instead - and was last reported overspending by £250,000 even its own enormously wasteful budget. Some 50 staff are apparently engaged in what is described as campaigns and communications work.

Labour is wasting loads of money just on buildings - most of them empty. Labour has spent £1000 a day for 44 months (£610,000) just to mothball Mary Seacole House in Clapham while another £290,000 was blown on other empty buildings. Even those it occupies like the Town Hall have highly inefficient and unregulated heating systems so that windows have to be opened in the middle of winter.

Meanwhile Lambeth tops the London league tables for empty council houses and also the number that are subsequently squatted - including one whole block of flats in Thornton ward run by Labour's cabinet member for Housing.

Latest figures show that there are over 1000 empty homes in Lambeth - double that when Labour took office. Currently there are 73 squatted properties - up from just 12 when Labour took charge in 2006 - plus a further 75 'unauthorised occupants' in Lambeth Labour New Speak. There's also an estimated 6-7,000 more households on the council waiting list than in April 2005.

This is an appalling amount of waste. It has been shown that Lambeth is losing £8million in rent from them alone - money that could be used to improve derelict properties, provide a home for a family, and bring in more rent. A virtuous circle in fact. But Labour would rather spend money it does not have on fat legal fees and court cases to evict the squatters it has created by leaving property empty.

And Lambeth has now finally admitted that its figure of 30% of council homes not meeting the Government's Decent Homes standard will actually rise to 40% by 2014. They've also admitted that there's no hope of getting the promised Government money for improvements until beyond 2014.

So let's be clear - under Labour during a recession that's been worse than any in living memory, social housing standards in Lambeth have got far, far worse.

That really is an inexcusable waste.

Read "COMMENT: Labour Lambeth Waste-Fest".

Labour Decent Homes Con Finally Exposed

4.43.14pm GMT Tue 2nd Mar 2010

Labour politicians have now been fatally exposed over false promises made to thousands of tenants across the borough that they could deliver substantial improvements to the crumbling public housing stock including new kitchens and bathrooms for everyone.

Labour's leaders boasted that they could grab loads of Government money (a reputed £233m) simply by setting-up a privatised housing management company (ALMO) later called Lambeth Living. Labour then poured huge resources, including diverting officers away from other important tasks, to convince, coerce and cajole residents into voting yes in a bid to cynically rid them of the housing problem.

The plan was to bring Lambeth council-owned properties up to the Labour Government's so called Decent Homes Standard by 2010. That standard by the way decreed that all social housing must be secure, weatherproof and warm. But almost as soon as they began the goalposts were moved forward two years to 2012.

Ever since the controversial ALMO was set-up, Lambeth Living has been sinking into a mire of debt and chaos, has been forced to shed countless frontline staff, close area offices, cut back on services, halt all but emergency repairs, and send tenant's rents and charges rocketing in a desperate bid to remain solvent.

In recent weeks and months we have also heard about consultants raking-in fat fees, the Council and Lambeth Living being at loggerheads, the Council Leader, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member all piling-in, seemingly just to rearrange the deckchairs on the fast sinking ship, and even a soon-to-be redundant local Labour MP being recast as a figurehead for this doomed vessel.

Now a shock report to Lambeth's Housing Scrutiny Committee finally confirms what Liberal Democrats have been saying for some time. Not only will tenants not see the promised improvements before or soon after the next election, they will now not see them until after the election after that.

The report says, " The delays (in getting the Government money) mean the prospect of ensuring all the tenanted stock reaches Decent Homes Standard by 2014 is no longer reliable as Lambeth is not in a position to access any alternative funding of this magnitude."

In other words Labour's slick door-to-door ALMO sales force sold the tenants a pup.

In a cruel double-whammy the same report also disclosed that the proportion of Lambeth homes not satisfying the decent homes standard has increased under Labour and is expected to rise from 30% to 40% by 2013/2014.

Liberal Democrat Housing spokesperson, Cllr Jeremy Clyne, commented " Labour has consistently denied this crisis entirely of their own making and dismissed our legitimate concerns as just scare-mongering politics. Labour has twisted and turned at every point, denied, rubbished and kept secret any information that did not fit in to their rosy scenario. Now they have been exposed to the full glare of the scrutiny spotlight and they have nowhere to hide. Everyone can now see who was telling the truth and who lied.

Cllr Clyne added, " The people I feel most sorry for are the Council tenants who were hoodwinked by Labour and their disastrous ALMO. The whole project has been a tragic and hugely expensive mistake and if Labour had only spent the money on repairing homes instead of repairing political careers and bolstering consultant's bulging wallets tenants would feel a lot better off than they do now.

Cllr Clyne said, " Make no mistake, Labour may feel that they've simply kicked a thorny problem into the long grass but the people who are now having to wait nearly a decade for a promised decent home will soon have the chance to cut Labour down to size."

Read "Labour Decent Homes Con Finally Exposed".

A Liberal Democrat Budget for a Fairer Lambeth - And Not Just a Freeze but £15 Cut

11.57.00am GMT Tue 23rd Feb 2010

Liberal Democrats are proposing to cut average council tax by £15

Liberal Democrats in Lambeth have published their Alternative Budget and pledged a £15 cut in average council tax.

Launching the proposals, Lambeth Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Ashley Lumsden said, "Labour's Leader in Lambeth has talked of impending drastic cuts from Central Government Funding after the election of 20% and that 'no council can afford to keep on doing what it's been doing' - while Gordon Brown has also clearly indicated that the cuts necessary to get the country out of its present economic mess will fall hardest on public services.

"These swinging cuts already alluded to by Labour really do need to be spelled out clearly before the local and national elections so that the electorate has a clear idea where the Labour axe will fall. Vague talk about efficiency savings will not do.

"That's why it is vital that the Lambeth budget and the budget setting process sets out a clear path not just for balancing the books for the coming election period but demonstrates the type of Council people have the right to expect over the next four years."

Liberal Democrats are warning that in an era of rapidly dwindling resources we have to divide the cake up a lot more fairly than hitherto and ensure that those hardest hit and on low incomes during the recession are not made to pay disproportionately.

Sadly, it is a fact that during the Labour Years in Government the gap between the rich and the poor has widened considerably. Here in Lambeth, while consultants have grown fat under Labour, Council Housing has deteriorated and rents have gone up while charges on often non-existent or low-level services have simply rocketed.

"We were also shocked when Labour councillors trousered big increases in their own responsibility allowances while escalating hourly charges for vital home care for elderly, vulnerable or disabled people to levels that are some of the highest in the land. That didn't seem very fair to us!" added Cllr Lumsden.

Liberal Democrats are demanding a much more aggressive push to reduce the number of council buildings and encourage the officers to use them more efficiently and cheaply using modern techniques such as hot-desking.

"Labour has left old council buildings like Mary Seacole House in Clapham empty and run-up huge security bills in the process," said Councillor Lumsden. "What a waste! Our budget actually proposes over £5 million more of savings than Labour's. That's clear evidence that Labour's fine talk about a Leaner Lambeth is just that - talk."

Liberal Democrats will scrap Labour's £100,000 cuts to street sweeping regimes and we will give an extra £300,000 to improve our much needed parks and open spaces. That puts some real meat on Labour's somewhat skeletal commitment to a cleaner, greener borough.

Lib Dems will also get to grips with recycling. Between 2002 and 2006 the Lib Dems raised recycling from Labour's sub-8% to 24%. That's solid achievement. Under Labour over the past four years green initiatives have suffered and stagnated and even now the borough only recycles a dismal 25%. Not much to be proud of there.

And there's not much to be proud of about energy consumption in Council buildings. Just attend any meeting in the Town Hall to see how windows have to be opened just to cope with the sweltering unregulated heat. And Labour has the cheek to ask you to reduce your energy consumption.

Labour has more fine words about Leisure and Young People - but the facts show that currently two out of three Council-run Leisure Centres are closed. In Clapham they have broken a 2006 election pledge to keep Clapham Swimming - here the swimming pool will be closed for two years. In Streatham the swimming pool closed without warning and its future is yet to be determined. In Brixton adults can only swim before 9am or after 6pm because of all the dislocated school swimming classes from the other sites. And they all face a trek up several flights of stairs outside in the cold between the pool and the changing rooms.

Elsewhere our once fine libraries are crumbling and in crisis. They have even been likened to looking like the ruins of ancient Greece by the local press. "We're not even sure that Labour cares much about libraries - they are too busy conjuring up virtual libraries to hoodwink audit inspectors," added Cllr Lumsden.

Crime is sadly on the increase yet Labour scrapped the Council Crime Wardens while many CCTV systems either do not work or need overhauling. So the Liberal Democrats are proposing to fund new neighbourhood initiatives designed to give local people more power to find local solutions. And they'd fund new local initiatives to provide creative and sports and play outlets for young people and also ways of giving them more of a say.

Finally the Liberal Democrat Alternative budget would reduce the hourly cost of homecare for our older citizens to just £10 per hour - less than half that approved by Labour. And Liberal Democrats have satisfied Lambeth Finance Officers through their more rigorous approach to financial planning can lop-off £15 from average Council Tax bills in 2010/11.

"Now that's a whole lot fairer isn't it?" asks Cllr Lumsden.

Read "A Liberal Democrat Budget for a Fairer Lambeth - And Not Just a Freeze but £15 Cut".

So Labour Lambeth is to be the new John Lewis?

12.16.07pm GMT Fri 19th Feb 2010

What a curious week. Struggling Lambeth Leader Steve Reed grabbed a few cheap headlines to demonstrate that there's life in the old dog yet, suggesting that if the electorate were to give Labour another chance down at the Town Hall after May's crucial poll he would rebrand the place as a branch of John Lewis.

Warming to his theme - and to prove that he hadn't just spotted a Waitrose Ocado Home Delivery van passing outside his office window - he pressed the 'nuclear' co-operative button as well just to prove that he is still vaguely in touch with traditional Labour roots.

All of which is strange given his past fervent allegiance to the failed Blair/Brown 'Third Way' New Labour experiment which was specifically designed to divest itself of any last lingering links to Labour's social history.

What is the voter to make of such seemingly promiscuous behaviour - probably that some politicians will make a desperate grab for any passing bandwagon when they are drowning in quick sands of their own making. We would not be so uncharitable, however, so let's look at the so-called evidence that Reed uses on his own website to support his new-found community-led ideology.

He states that he has opened the first parent-promoted secondary school, Elmgreen - and so he has, only he didn't think of it, pave the way for it, or even approve it, the Liberal Democrats did. The school just got built during his term in office. And - BOY! - has he dined out on it since.

Reed then suggests that Lambeth has pioneered the way with Tenant Managed Organisations in Housing and that Lambeth has more of them than anywhere else. Also true - to a point. He just doesn't mention that Labour has consistently starved TMO's of funds and that residents were generally desperate to create them just to get away from his own Council's sheer neglect and sky-high charges.

Curiously he then mentions Coin Street Community Builders on the trendy South Bank as a role model for his New Jerusalem - the very same people that were criticised by Liberal Democrats for proposing a swish 50-storey residential tower block behind the National Theatre with not a single unit of social housing in it. Labour, of course, gave that shining glossy edifice of private privilege its solid seal of approval.

And Reed is curiously silent about Lambeth Living, the All-Singing and Dancing privatised Arms-Length Management Organisation that he and his Labour chums sprung on council tenants after the last local elections. Despite simply enormous injections of cash from tenants' pockets over the past two years, the more-dead- than-alive Lambeth Living remains on Life Support and all the promised new kitchens and bathrooms seem to be a fast receding hope.

The Lambeth Labour Leader then suddenly espouses closer co-operation with communities giving them more of a say - and this from someone who scrapped local area committees, slashed local community funding, and regularly tells members of the public that they are there only to silently observe cabinet meetings while they pass judgement on savage service cuts while boosting their own salaries and then disgracefully set charges for social home care to the highest level in the land.

Of course it may just be that this new co-operative model from Lambeth Labour marks a genuine - if last minute - conversion in their thinking, or it could just be the latest in a long-line of Labour twists and turns simply so they can hang onto power in the Town Hall.

On May 6th it will be for the voters to decide whether to take the risk. Whether New Reformed Co-operative Labour is now to be trusted to deliver a so-called John Lewis Council - or whether it is just traditional New Labour spin - or maybe just so much hog wash.

Read "So Labour Lambeth is to be the new John Lewis?".

Labour Crime Surges - So Tories Cut Police

7.18.04pm GMT Mon 15th Feb 2010

Only weeks after our report on the shock surge of serious crime involving knives and firearms in Lambeth and a massive wave of residential robbery across the borough breaking all attempts to contain them, Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson has just announced a cut in the operational budgets of borough Police Commanders.

Stunned critics at City Hall, including Lib Dem spokeswoman Dee Doocey, say that the £27 million budget cut (roughly 5%) which the Mayor wants to see being directed at office and backroom staff will actually lead to more front-line police officers being taken away from patrolling the streets and covering for them.

In an astonishing double-whammy the Mayor also wants to cut 455 police officer posts between now and the 2012 Olympics with the axe expected to fall most heavily on the Neighbourhood Policing Teams that were meant to be the friendly face of the Metropolitan Police working in the community.

The Tories say that the cuts, which one senior officer described as painful, are to be delivered by individual Borough Police Commanders in conjunction with their Local Authority partners. The worry is that in high-crime areas like Lambeth, where resources are already stretched, crime will rocket.

Lambeth Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Ashley Lumsden, said, "Residents will quite rightly feel let down by Labour's surging crime wave and unnerved and puzzled by the Tory's axe on police spending. These are political parties that constantly bang-on in the media about tackling crime but their words now sound increasingly hollow."

"Liberal Democrats are committed to providing more police patrolling our streets not less," Cllr Ashley Lumsden added, "so in the elections in May there is now a clear choice. Two major parties, acting like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, and waiving the white flag on crime, or the Liberal Democrats."

Read "Labour Crime Surges - So Tories Cut Police".

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".

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