LAMBETH: Council rents to rise 14 per cent (From This Is Local London)

LAMBETH: Council rents to rise 14 per cent

11:59am Thursday 16th October 2008

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Lambeth Council has scrapped plans for a 5 per cent rent increase for its tenants in December - but will instead hit them with an estimated 14 per cent increase next April.

The average cost of rent for council tenants in a two bedroom flat will rocket by £14 to £114 a week as Lambeth Council tries to make up for disastrous financial mismanagement that means £16.5m of housing account savings must be made in the next 18 months.

Some 130 jobs are also to be cut at Lambeth Living - its arms length housing management organisation - massively cutting services provided to 20,000 tenants.

The cuts, approved at a cabinet meeting on Monday, are expected to have a detrimental effect on the council’s hopes of securing the two-star rating it needs to secure a proposed £200m investment from the Government.

Financial savings could also mean planned maintenance and repairs at council properties are stripped to the bone and cleaners and concierges disappear.

Some £4.5m will also be taken from the tenant management organisations which manage estates.

Council officers’ suggestion of a mid-year rent rise for tenants, revealed in the Streatham Guardian last week, were rejected by the cabinet because it thought it “morally wrong” to pass responsibility for its overspend on to its hard-pushed tenants.

But it has only delayed the mid-year rent increases, not scrapped them.

Council leader Steve Reed defended the massive rent increase saying that Lambeth’s rents were low compared to other London boroughs and the management organisation would be safe.

Cabinet member for Housing and Regeneration Lib Peck said the action was due to a “historic problem” as well as “in year problems” and the action was essential.

“We have no resources, we have no cushion and there is no quick fix,” she said.

But tenants association representative Jean Kerrigan questioned the wisdom of cutting so many staff when problems stemmed from mismanagement at the top level.

She said: “There are some people working in senior management positions with contracts worth £600 to £700 a day. That is where the money is being lost and mistakes are being made.”

Lib Dem leader Ashley Lumsden said: “The Government should put the housing department on special measures with immediate effect."

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