london diary

May 2018

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Lambeth Housing Tell Us the Truth

Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton, London. Tue 1 May 2018



 I get to Lambeth Town Hall as the protest there is about to start

 There are fewer there than I had expected - perhaps many had other things to do on May Day, and the event

 was planned at short notice, for a few days before the council elections on May 5th. The Labour Party claims in

their manifesto they will "build 1,000 extra homes at council rent by 2019" and that they are well on the way to

 this target. A freedom of information request by Brixton Buzz finds the number built so far as just 17, which makes

 the manifesto statement "By early 2018 we had over 950 homes completed, being built or already approved by

  Lambeth’s cabinet" at best misleading. What it should have said was that Lambeth Council is involved in a

 massive programme of social cleansing, , handing over council property for private development which will result

 in a dramatic reduction in the number of homes at council rents over the next few years", but perhaps that would

 have got them rather fewer votes. It seems that even the 17 reported under FOI is actually an over-estimate and

 the actual figure is thought to be 8 or 9 - around a hundreth of the figure used in the manifesto. That figure includes

 many approved by the cabinet that will never be built as the developers will claim they cannot make their

 minimum allowed profit of 20% on them and will be excused from the obligation - and they will instead become

 high price private homes. People whose council homes are demolished will mainly find they have to move to

 outlying areas of London, and many will find themselves in high rent private accomodation of a much lower

 standard than their current homes. The protest called for a public inquiry into Lambeth Labour’s housing policy,

  an immediate halt to estate demolitions and a call to stop the privatisation via Homes for Lambeth

 which is leading to social cleansing.

 

 Unfortunately few people in Lambeth are aware what is going on. It's hard to believe a Labour council would

 act like this - until it happens to you. And then it's too late. Nationally Labour is changing, but only slowly and the
people who are doing these things still have control of the party machinery although they are now in a minority.
There seems to be a long way to go in Lambeth before things can change for the better.

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